Behind Blue Eyes
by Anticlere
Summary: No one knows what it's like to be the bad man of the regiment; the morale officer; the Commissar. Certainly, freshly baked Commissar Kathel Sharpe has only the vaguest of ideas as she descends to the surface of Uskarus II, a world in the grip of a Tyranid invasion. In war, however, you learn fast - or you die. [ON HOLD]
1. First Impressions

**CHAPTER ONE**

**First Impressions**

* * *

"_They teach you everything there is to know about Commissarial service in the Schola,_

_except how to be a Commissar."_

-Commissarial proverb

* * *

All things considered, it was a rather unimpressive example as far as Commissarial caps went. Sure, the way the winged skull emblazoned upon its front grinned at any onlookers was slightly imposing, but it was clearly second-hand. The fabric was worn; faintly charred along one side, even, where it had apparently been grazed by lasfire. And it seemed someone had sat on it at some point in the none-too-distant past, undeniably stripping it of some of the dignity expected of such a badge of Commissarial authority.

Her old Schola tutor, of course, would have said that all of the above were signs of 'character'; a certain spirit gained only through years of service in His Glorious Name. A legacy any aspiring Commissar should be proud to inherit; a message that inspired you to go on and perform valiant deeds of your own.

For Kathel, though, it was rather more difficult to get excited. Maybe if the thing hadn't been two sizes too large.

Then again, much the same could be said of the rest of her uniform. Perhaps it was slightly paradoxical, but wearing a greatcoat designed to make her look larger seemed to have exactly the opposite effect. Thankfully, the Munitorum had at least gotten the gender right (which was never really a given with them), so it was only the epaulettes that seemed a bit exaggerated compared to her slender frame; she'd have outright disappeared into the male versions, which appeared to have been designed with six feet tall Catachans in mind.

A Commissar, of course, ought to look imposing and inspiring no matter the circumstances, as she'd been told on countless occasions (the tone of the message becoming more and more insistent each time) back in the Schola. But she wasn't really in the best of places for that right now; being the only passenger in a shuttle compartment meant for several dozen people had a way of making you shrink.

And even if she managed to overcome that issue, it wasn't like anyone was around to witness her being at her most Commissarial and scariest anyway.

The aircraft lurched awkwardly. Caught entirely by surprise, Kathel almost dropped her cap but, thankfully, she had no fellow travellers who might see such a faux pas; rather than risk it again, however, she decided to stop staring at the thing and instead put it back on her head where it belonged.

No amount of looking at the chafed skull grinning at her from its front would change the unpleasant truth, after all. The hat only seemed to confirm what she already knew - her Schola days were well and truly over; after years of doing nothing in particular, the cadets were finally given their sashes and caps, then shoved unceremoniously out the door. And while some in her year may have relished the chance to experience the dark and uninviting galaxy waiting beyond, to her the idea seemed _absolutely terrifying._

Not least because while _some _in her year had had the good fortune to be saddled with things like garrisons or artillery regiments, she wasn't as lucky.

Oh, what she wouldn't have given to be the one who got sent off to watch over a handful of Guardsmen taking shots at the enemy from miles off. A handful of Guardsmen from Valhalla, no less - her own homeworld! Unfortunately, though, that wasn't proper procedure; Commissars were rarely if ever stationed with their compatriots, to cut down on the possibilities for fraternization. So the Commissariat dropped off a hiver to herd the iceworlders and their Earthshakers around, while Kathel?

She'd drawn the short stick.

The very, very short stick of being hauled off to Uskarus II – a remote little agriworld that seemed pleasant enough, until you realized it was being chewed on by a swarm of Tyranids. There, she was to join a regiment whose previous morale officer had been turned into biomass in the opening stages of the xeno assault; a regiment that was still busy fighting those same xenos, no less.

As far as she was concerned, things couldn't get much worse. That was, of course, before she'd stepped on the dingy-looking (what else could you expect from a requisitioned civilian ship?) craft supposed to ferry her to the surface and discovered anew the truth that things can _always _get worse.

Something about the shuttle's heating insulation must've gone awry over the years; or maybe it was just her, being an iceworlder and thus - inherently predisposed against higher temperatures. Regardless, the Valhallan was practically boiling in her own sweat as they trundled through the atmosphere, her thick greatcoat doing nothing whatsoever to help.

So bad was it that at that point, protocol be damned – if it hadn't been for the crash webbing she was tangled up in, Kathel would've slipped out of the thing in an instant. As it was, she was stuck with the cursed benefit of hindsight, wishing dearly she'd had the sense to put all the space left for her in the dimly lit passenger compartment to use back before they'd taken off. It's not like anyone was sitting in all those empty seats, so no one would've objected to her folding her coat up on one of them.

If the thought of freeing herself from the straps holding her trapped in her chair to do that mid-flight had initially crossed the young Commissar's mind, though, the first of their abrupt jerks was enough to chase that particular plan away. The only place that was likely land her in was a coffin, after she'd inevitably cracked her head open on one of the many, many sharp angles lying in wait all around her.

Not the most glorious way for a Commissar to go, especially as it seemed she'd soon have her pick from all sorts of valiant deaths more suitable for her position.

Without warning, the commbead in her ear crackled to life, dispelling at least some of her gloomy thoughts as she recognized the pilot's voice (not that this was unduly difficult, since no one else could have been trying to contact her).

"We will be landing in five minutes at most, Commissar." Being as he was a civilian, the thought of flying with a member of the Commissariat – the full extent of whose powers he probably had only the vaguest idea of – in the back didn't seem to sit well with him. The man sounded tense behind the crackle of the vox; his wording, slightly too formal to be entirely natural, betrayed as much as well. "I thought you would like to know."

For a moment, Kathel entertained the thought of responding in some manner; maybe make a vaguely pleased noise of some sort. However, between the heat and the slight queasiness – brought on as much by their unstable means of transport as by the prospect of landing soon – she just didn't have it in her to switch the vox on.

"...Commissar?" There was a slightly urgent note to his voice now, no doubt thanks to the protracted silence that his words had been met with. Apparently, the pilot wasn't going to leave her alone that easily.

Trying not to think too hard about the fact she'd need to get back on her feet somehow in just five minutes, the young Valhallan brought her hand up to her ear and clicked the commbead. "Yes, I read that. Is there anything else?"

Though she'd tried her best to sound restrained and Commissarial, some of how she felt must've spilled out into her tone, since the response from the man at the helm was remarkably short and flustered, consisting only of a stammered "N-no."

Perhaps he was worried she'd shoot him if he bothered her again, as after that little exchange, silence descended on Kathel's world again (confined as it presently was to the interior of the shuttle, with its unappealingly utilitarian angles and rusty spots that didn't exactly inspire confidence in the craft's integrity). This left her ample time to wonder how, exactly, was she going to motivate anyone to die for the Emperor if she couldn't even motivate herself to answer one lousy vox message.

And, for a more immediate concern, how was it that she intended to get through a formal reception by her new regiment's officers.

After a bit of thinking, though, she decided she could lay that particular worry to rest. After all, this wasn't some grass-green bunch of conscripts she was about to join; these were supposed to be veteran Guardsmen, who probably didn't much care for protocol when it came to welcoming Commissars – particularly freshly baked ones. The best she could hope for was a junior officer or two to shake her hand uncomfortably, and perhaps a trooper to carry her (nonexistent) baggage.

For that matter, what _did _she know about this regiment she was heading off to? Trying to think back to what she'd picked out of the mind-numbingly dry dataslate provided by the Munitorum seemed as good a way as any to escape those of her thoughts that were less than cheerful in their nature, so the young Valhallan buried her face in her palms and tried to remember.

(Of course, she still had the information dataslate with her so, if she'd really been that bothered about it, she needed only have looked; however, given that this was about brightening the mood, reading what some shrivelled up scribe of the Departmento's had scrounged together would rather defeat the point.)

The designation was the easiest thing to remember; Vanquese 507th Mechanized, her new home regiment was called. As the name implied, it was fully mechanized which, if nothing else, meant she at least wouldn't have to spend as much time walking, which was a definite plus. Mechanization was one of the bonuses of having a heavily industrialized hive for a homeworld, the other obvious benefit being that reinforcements weren't going to run out anytime soon. Vanquo had a population well into the billions, which, truth be told, she found difficult to imagine, but decided to believe what it was the Munitorum had put in their drivel.

Rather less encouragingly, the 507th seemed to make heavy use of that particular 'feature'; with a regiment that was tossed into the thickest fighting as a matter of course, though, casualties were inevitable. And inevitably heavy, as the loss of a good third of its manpower in its current campaign against the Tyranids on Uskarus II clearly demonstrated.

For some reason, Kathel couldn't help but suspect that they'd have been even heavier if the regiment hadn't lost its Commissar right off the bat. At least this way, with no one to threaten decimation for cowardice, when the going got too tough, they could use their Chimeras to do the smart thing by putting as many miles between themselves and the swarm as possible.

Now the honeymoon was over, though, meaning she'd been sent along to rob them of that particular tactical advantage by replacing her (undoubtedly dearly missed) predecessor. You didn't need to be a genius to see that the Munitorum had made filling in this particular vacancy a priority, what with the haste with which she (and a couple other replacement Commissars) had been flung across the galaxy. Meanwhile, reinforcements that arrived before the campaign was over were likely a matter of 'if', not 'when'.

Throne forbid that a regiment of the Imperial Guard exist for any length of time without the guiding hand of a morale officer to help it along, after all. Unless you were a Catachan (and thus imaginative enough to get rid of Commissars faster than they could be taught) or a Krieger (and thus more in need of holding back than urging onwards), your chances of avoiding that meddlesome Commissarial cap sticking its nose into your business were slim to none.

Her memory failed her beyond those basic details and the interesting point that the 507th was one of the handful of mixed-gender regiments in the Guard. A few names with appended ranks floated about in her head but, seeing as she failed to match them with any of the faces she recalled, it all seemed a bit hazy; vaguely, the young Valhallan could remember that the second in command was originally from the lower hives of Vanquo, which at least served to kindle her hopes for a lacking reception. She could worry about forging some sort of working relationship with the officers later – for now, Kathel just wanted to be left alone to collect herself and to come to terms with the fact she was well and truly a full-fledged Commissar now, with no way back to the comparatively whimsical days of the Schola.

Not that they'd seemed particularly simple back then but, compared to the sinking feeling that was presently twisting her insides into more kinds of knots than an agriworld fisherman knows of, she'd have gladly returned to being hollered at by her tutors.

Unfortunately, the Emperor had different plans.

As if to underline the point, the shuttle lurched awkwardly again, before the unmistakeable tremor of touching down alerted the Commissar that her little journey was at its (unwelcome) end.

"We have touchdown." The pilot's voice in her commbead pointed out what she'd already noticed, engines beginning to power down. That was mighty decent of him - Kathel noted idly in a vain attempt to fight back the apprehension that was starting to set in strong enough to numb her fingers - considering he'd just have to turn them back on and fly right back to his ship as soon as she'd been greeted by her regiment.

Of course, the small courtesy of letting her talk with whoever had turned up to welcome her to Uskarus II without the aircraft's engines howling in the background was offset by the fact he'd just taken her into a war against some of the most dangerous xenos the Imperium has ever encountered.

"I'll have the ramp lowered in a second, Commissar." He announced, oblivious to his fault. If the intonation she picked up beneath the depersonalizing quality of the vox was any indication, he seemed eager to get rid of her and put as many miles between himself and the planet's surface as possible – and who could really blame him? Certainly, the only thing the Commissar herself begrudged was being unable to fly off with him; maybe the cargo vessel requisitioned to ferry her and her colleagues to the warzone had been a bit on the cramped side, but having to suffer quarters that were somewhat too small for comfort was a fate infinitely better than being turned into biomass for the swarms.

Try as she might to assure herself that the Emperor protects (and, should He be too busy, the guns of a mechanized regiment can do the job too), as she freed herself of the crash webbing, the young Valhallan couldn't help but feel her fingers grow ever number with apprehension.

If nothing else though, now that they were back on terra firma and she was out of the entrapments of her seat, she could at least get out of the greatcoat. A slight relief it may have been, but Kathel welcomed it all the same, sighing contentedly and rolling the sleeves of her shirt back well past the elbows before slinging the offending black coat over her shoulder. For some reason, now that she could look at it from the side, the thing looked a bit like the skin of some grouchy large animal – which she guessed wasn't that far from what most Guardsmen considered Commissars to be.

Grouchy, dangerous animals.

The thought made her chuckle. Weakly, but it was a start.

Odd though that may have seemed, the closer she got to actually disembarking, the less it seemed like this was all a horrible misunderstanding that she should run away from. Maybe it was what little the Schola had managed to hammer into her head reasserting itself; maybe (somewhat more likely) just the effect of being on her feet again and moments from stepping on ground that, while by no means safe, at least couldn't open up and leave her to the dubious mercies of a freefall from a frankly unhealthy height. Whichever it was, waiting for the ramp to open, the Commissar felt undeniably better about herself than she had moments ago.

So what if she still felt weak in the knees, or if there was a slowly fading greenish hue to her normally pale skin. In her defence, the flight through the atmosphere hadn't been entirely pleasant. She'd probably be able to hide the unsteadiness well enough - and, if all else failed, the bolter pistol and the chainsword holstered at her sides (both, particularly the former, clearly visible now that she'd removed her greatcoat) would be enough to dissuade any Guardsmen from openly calling her out on those more apparent signs of queasiness.

Finally, with a laboured hiss and some clanging that was a bit on the unseemly side in the middle of a Commissar's allegedly glorious arrival to her new home regiment, the disembarkation ramp started to slide open.

In lieu of a welcome, Uskarus II elected instead to blind her with a flash of sunlight. Used to the yellowish hues of luminator light after weeks spent aboard a spacecraft with no sun to speak of, Kathel's icy blue eyes welled up with tears instantly; she blinked a couple times, shielding them hastily with her free hand.

The first thing she saw of this world that was supposed to witness her baptism by fire was an unexpectedly beautiful sunset. It seemed to pin her down where she was standing, transfixed by the almost otherworldly contrast presented as rays of fiery orange draped over a ravaged countryside stretching out around the rockcrete landing pad upon which her shuttle had set down.

It must have certainly been idyllic once; fields of some crop she didn't recognize swaying gently in the wind with a narrow little road weaving through them and around the hills, to a small township that the Valhallan figured couldn't have been more than a few kloms to the south. Even with the unmistakeable tears of heavy artillery bombardment left by the fighting and the collapsed spire of the town's Ministorum church to remind her that this was a warzone, it felt rather like stepping into a painting that-

Poetry was all well and good but, as Kathel's eyes finally wandered downwards to what awaited her at the foot of the shuttle's ramp, she couldn't help feeling a sickly dropping sensation in her chest, not unlike missing a step while climbing down a flight of stairs. While she'd been busy taking in the rural surroundings, someone else had been look up at her.

Standing in the shadows cast by one Scout and a couple of Command Salamanders there were, in fact, a handful of someones. All dressed in parade uniforms that were as spotless as could be expected under the circumstances, with what was obviously quite an abundance of rank insignia, no less. Their nature, predominantly captaincy studs as far as could be told from where the Commissar was standing, made it abundantly clear – maybe the Vanquese 507th _did _care about protocol, after all.

After all, why else would a good chunk of the regiment's senior officers and a handful of their junior counterparts have bothered to turn up on a landing pad in the middle of some thoroughly ruined fields.

The small knot of officers certainly presented a rather impressive spectacle, their tense poses as they waited for her to notice them (with commendable patience, it had to be said) radiating a crisp calmness that would have been right at home in a victory parade. Enough so to make the Commissar acutely aware that she herself, with her sweat-drenched shirt and the greatcoat slung over her shoulder, looked less than appropriate. The numbness in her fingers which she'd come to associate with apprehension began creeping in with renewed strength.

Well, to say that the Valhallan didn't look impressive to the Guardsmen below wasn't entirely accurate – but it wasn't exactly the right sort of impressive for an acting member of the Commissariat, and it would only have affected those officers of the male persuasion.

While short by any standards, being only six or so inches above five feet, Kathel was nonetheless athletic (she'd been among the better players of scrumball in the Commissarial Cadets, after all, the sport being about the only thing she was ever any good at). This was all the more obvious now that her coat was gone – and that wasn't the only obvious thing. She was, after all, a young woman in bloom, and couldn't be said to be lacking in such curves to her figure as to make that appealingly apparent.

Only the Commissarial cap perched atop her charcoal-black hair seemed determined to ruin the male officers' gawking by reminding them this wasn't exactly some ordinary decent-looking girl they'd spotted on the street.

Feeling uncomfortably like she'd used to back in the Schola's showers, the Commissar began to realize that she was standing out a bit as she was now – and that it was better to start fitting in as fast as possible, before offense was taken (or, worse yet to any authority she might hope to hold over these people, suggestive whistling ensued). To that end she began pulling the greatcoat back over her shoulders, slowly enough to make it seem like she was hoping no one would notice her awkward attempts at salvaging the situation if they happened at such a crawling, cautious pace. Trying to find some sort of a brighter side to it all only led to thanking the Golden Throne that at least the evening wasn't windy and nothing could knock her hat off to further the embarrassment.

While the left sleeve of the coat proved easy enough to slip her arm back into, the right turned out to be far more treacherous. It certainly didn't help that, with all the intent staring from the lower end of the ramp, her fingers only seemed to grow less and less responsive. Feebly, Kathel's right hand pawed at the fabric a couple of times, failing to find any sort of an entry point; for a few tense moments, she couldn't help imagining the right sleeve had somehow been sewn shut, her overactive imagination proving the traitor despite the fact there wasn't even the slightest chance of that being the case.

Finally, though, her hand found what it had been looking for and dived in. She could only hope the Vanquese officers hadn't heard her sigh of relief as it did. A careful glance over their faces revealed they were still simply staring at her, dispassionately but intently. Whatever signs of amusement or annoyance as may have been there had been wiped clean now that she looked a bit more like a Commissar and a bit less like some ordinary citizen of the Imperium who'd gotten hold of a funny hat.

Her boots thunked ominously as she descended down the ramp, the dignity and authority of the sound undermined somewhat by the debacle moments prior. Worrying clangs and crackles from the shuttle engines seemed to punctuate her footsteps. The faint, but unmistakeable stench of frying electronics was on the soft evening breeze, its connotations clear – everyone here would try their darnedest to be as far away from the thing as humanly possible when it attempted takeoff.

"Commissar Sharpe," His voice commendably businesslike for the uninspiring display he'd just had to witness, the Colonel made his presence known, stepping forward and saluting with the unfettered confidence of someone who was familiar with formal situations, inside and out. "Welcome to the 507th."

Resisting the instinct to follow his lead and salute back by remembering she wasn't actually part of the chain of command and thus – not supposed to do that, Kathel nodded, feeling as if she looked a bit more lost than she would've liked to. "Colonel Hofler." Thankfully, her mind at least managed to match the name and rank to the face now that she was witnessing him in the flesh.

The Colonel was much like she'd seen him in the dataslate, a rather appealing gaunt face that was ruined only by the unseemly burn mark under the left of his two dark brown eyes. In the flesh, Arthur Hofler turned out to be a bit shorter than the Valhallan had expected, only an inch or two taller than herself; in fact, a lot of the officers gathered there seemed a bit on the short side compared to the people she was used to seeing in the Schola. What he lacked in imposing physique, though, the Colonel made up for with his air of easy comfort and, somewhat unusually for a Guard commander – a sort of polite curiosity, as if he was determined to listen to what you had to say no matter how boring it all was.

All in all, nothing the young Commissar couldn't have expected, now that she remembered Colonel Hofler was of aristocratic descent. Regardless of how competent he actually was as a regimental commander, at least he managed to look the part, his uniform looking as spotless as though it was fresh off the hanger and every bit a second skin to him.

"My second in command," Hofler motioned towards the woman standing next to him, directing Kathel's attention from himself. "Major Mewsen."

If the intention behind promoting those two had been to have a commanding officer and his second who looked as much unlike one another as they conceivably could, then mission accomplished, the Valhallan noted as she returned the brashly red-haired Major's salute with another nod. Mewsen was the lower hiver she remembered, the very same who had so catastrophically failed to live up to her expectations of a lacking reception; for once in her life, the Commissar found herself greeting someone who was of level height with herself.

That was where the similarities ended, though, as Nellie – an inappropriately soft name for someone of such sharp features – and her ponytail of red seemed to contrast with the pale Valhallan's charcoal black as much as they did with the Colonel's own neatly trimmed dark brown hair. And while there was nothing off about her uniform per say, she didn't look half as comfortable in it as her commanding officer – and, for another thing, certainly far less interested in the Commissar, if the sceptical glint in her steely blue (almost grey) eyes was any indication.

Apparently, she was less willing to overlook the greatcoat debacle. Or maybe she just held a grudge over being dragged all the way out here in the fields just for one lousy member of the Commissariat.

Colonel Hofler didn't allow the nearly palpable tension hanging between his second in command and the new regimental Commissar to dissuade him from continuing with the introductions, disregarding Mewsen's mistrustful glares entirely. Apparently, having gotten into the mindset of a courteous host, there was no knocking the man out of it, even when the vast majority of the captains and the odd lieutenant assembled (probably there to fill in the vacuum left by officers that had met much the same end as her own predecessor, Kathel guessed) gave her much the same look, with the notable exception of one captain – who looked vaguely amused, which still wasn't the reaction a Commissar should've been looking for – and one lieutenant, who seemed a bit uneasy. Although, with how worried the woman seemed, it could just as well have been because she suddenly found herself needing to use the bathroom as because of the member of the Commissariat present.

Then, just when the Valhallan thought their introductions were done with and she could perhaps crawl somewhere to sleep it all off (not that she felt particularly sleepy but, seeing as it appeared to be evening, it was perhaps better to start adjusting to the day-night cycle of Uskarus II as fast as possible), the Colonel motioned towards one of the Salamanders. "And this is Trooper Derichs," He pronounced as a showman magician would the name of his most impressive trick and, indeed as if pulled from a hat, a man with the unmistakeable bearing of the common Guardsman emerged from the vehicle's shadow to salute her.

All things considered, Kathel wasn't really sure how she'd managed to miss him; among the parade uniforms of the officers, Derichs' kit stood out like an Ogryn in a fancy dress party. Then again, perhaps it had been thanks to that same getup that he'd slipped past her notice, the muted greys of urban camouflage which coloured the knee-long coat that he wore underneath his flak armour merging almost seamlessly with the patterns of the Salamander behind him.

"Ma'am." The trooper saluted rigidly, somehow endeavouring to open his mouth entirely without dropping the unlit lhostick in its corner.

Seeing the questioning look in her eye, Hofler smiled faintly. "Trooper Derichs will escort you to your quarters, Commissar, and help you familiarize yourself with the regiment for as long as his services are required. That is to say, serving in the capacity of your Commissarial aide."

"I see." Kathel eyed Derichs up and down. Very much the ordinary specimen of an Imperial Guardsman; from the shadow of unshaved stubble over his broad chin, to the lhostick in his mouth (though the fact it wasn't lit was maybe a bit unusual). A couple inches shorter than what you might expect but, if her reception was any indication, all Vanquese tended towards that, which of course meant that she and her paltry five feet and six inches would fit right in. If it hadn't been for the fact the Munitorum barely even knew what planets its Guardsmen came from, let alone how tall the regiments were on average, she might've even suspected this to have been an intentional decision.

For a moment, the Commissar wondered if saddling the man with being her aide wasn't some sort of a punishment – perhaps he'd been given the choice between that and cleaning the latrines. If that were the case, at least she could take heart from the fact that the average soldier of the regiment seemed to prefer carrying a Commissar's bags to scrubbing the lavatories.

"Baggage, ma'am?" Derichs broke her considerations, eyeing the open ramp to the shuttle suspiciously. If he'd feared being buried under a mountain of packs, though, then he would be glad to see her shake her head.

"None to speak of, I'm afraid." Well, that wasn't the whole truth, but what possessions she'd brought along with her fitted into the inner pockets of her greatcoat. She wasn't going to trust her only packet of tanna leaf to anyone else, in any event, since the Throne only knew when she'd get the chance to refill her stocks, and the three dataslates she had on her weren't exactly heavy lifting. And while the first two were nothing special, being respectively the Munitorum brief on her new regiment and a comprehensive list of infringements and their appropriate punishments (most of those being the unimaginative yet unsurprising 'summary execution'), the last she would rather not have trusted to anyone else, either.

A Commissar wasn't exactly supposed to carry around corny romantic novels, after all. But, while _Romielle and Julian _wasn't exactly a literary masterpiece, something told her that, if she lived long enough for it, all those lengthy and well-detailed intimate sequences might help ease the pains inherent in her off-putting and ultimately very lonely position.

With her introduction to the regiment thus concluded, the officers began to slink back to their vehicles, the vast majority in the small knot of men and women looking as though they had some reservations about the newest addition to their regiment, Major Mewsen most obviously. Kathel didn't really feel like she could blame them; herself, she certainly didn't feel entirely uplifted by the experience, enough so to begin pointlessly ruing the heroic nature of her father's death that had landed her a spot in the Schola.

As Derichs brought the Scout Salamander apparently slated for her transport to life, almost in unison, the engines of the shuttle sputtered into action. Closing, the disembarkation ramp hissed angrily, sending a slightly painful pang through the Commissar's chest as it took with it her only remaining lifeline with the rest of the galaxy.


	2. How the Air Conditioning was Won

**CHAPTER TWO**

**How the Air Conditioning was Won**

* * *

"_Never, ever turn a Valhallan's air conditioning up._

_They'll melt, but they'll kill you before they do."_

-Unknown Cadian Guardsman

* * *

The Salamander's machine spirit seemed to enjoy the exertion, if its vivacious thrumming was any indication. Seeing as Derichs did not appear to be in much of a rush to get them on the road, Kathel had plenty of time to listen to the cacophony of different machines, standing as she was in the open-air rear compartment; the shuttle's laboured roaring rose in pitch and volume, soon drowning out the rather more harmonious growls of the land transports entirely and forcing her to cram her fingers into her ears.

Plainly, if this racket was any indication of what the 507th's usual operations sounded like, securing some sort of a headset with an inbuilt vox was a priority.

Her newly appointed Commissarial aide did not seem altogether bothered by the noise, but then it was rather easier to play tough when you were on the inside. On the other hand, as someone who didn't have the luxury of a layer of armoured plate to dampen it all, the Valhallan felt very much like getting away from the landing pad as fast as possible – preferably before she went completely deaf, which seemed to be where things were headed for.

To say nothing of the very real possibility of the shuttle behind them bursting spectacularly into flames as it attempted dustoff. While it wouldn't have been a tremendous loss, she would have much preferred to observe it from a safe distance; a whole different Segmentum, ideally. Under the circumstances, though, the ruined town a few kloms south would suffice as well - or anywhere else that wasn't where they presently were, really.

Just as she was beginning to consider sticking her Commissarial nose into things and inquiring as to the reason why they were standing idly about, a particularly thick waft of promethium exhaust reached her nose. The last of the officers apparently comfortably aboard, the Command Salamanders finally set off, jerking forward in a slightly awkward fashion as their machine spirits were roused from their slumber.

It appeared their little convoy was to ride by order of seniority and importance to the regiment, which was to be expected. After unceremoniously driving into the fields with a wide turn, the Colonel's transport set out down the narrow dirt-track of a road first, followed closely by the Major's. Then, with no other vehicles left (seeing as the other officers had made themselves cosy in the vehicles of one or the other of their superiors), it was their turn.

And away they were, with an abrupt lurch that sent Kathel grasping desperately for the pintle-mounted heavy bolter to avoid ignobly falling over. Cursing her luck with a select choice of colourful adjectives picked up from her fellow Commissarial Cadets in the Schola, she dug her nails into one of the gun's handles, pre-emptively pressing her cap to her head with the free hand. Damned if she was going to embarrass herself further by having Derichs pull over to pick through the ravaged fields in search for her hat.

As the trooper gave their engine more juice and they gained speed, however, the young Valhallan found herself reflecting that things could have probably been worse. The pleasantly cool evening air rushing through her hair had a bit of a sobering effect, at least, dispelling the last of the nausea from her rocky flight; and while some may have found it a bit too chilly for their tastes, to an iceworlder it was all one – the temperature could have been barely above sub-zero and it would still have counted as 'warm'.

If nothing else, the wind that sent her greatcoat fluttering like the wings of a thoroughly frightened bat could tide her over until the dreams of a room with air conditioning became reality. Not to mention, whatever the discomforts, the open-aired rear of the Scout Salamander at least allowed her to observe the surrounding countryside at her leisure, even as it was all slightly blurry thanks to Derichs' enthusiastic handling of the accelerator.

A slight blur and some wind in her face couldn't compare with being flustered by the unfortunate combination of protocol and her failure to adhere to it, however, so the Commissar returned to her sightseeing with renewed interest. As she'd already noticed before, it had to be conceded –until the Tyranids swung by and everything went to Warp with alarming haste, Uskarus II must have had some fairly beautiful sights, even if they were perhaps a bit rustic and simple in nature for more 'sophisticated' tastes.

From the ramp of the shuttle, however, she hadn't been able to properly take in the toll that war had taken on it all. Now that she could get a closer look at it, any illusions of some sort of air of soothing calmness as she'd imagined veiling the hilly fields around them were harshly shattered.

Artillery bombardment had done a number on the ground, the handiwork of Earthshakers impossible to miss in craters that were, in some cases, as deep as their transport was tall. Though not all of the crops had been ruined – which probably meant the Tyranids had never gotten a good hold of this place, given their tendency to devour everything that could be used as biomass - with clusters of stalks still swaying gently in the breeze here and there (stalks of what, exactly, she still wasn't able to tell, given that tanna leaf was about the only plant she could truly claim to recognize), it was pretty obvious that whatever worlds depended on the fields' produce for their source of food would have to tighten their belts for some time. Quite apart from the notable and slightly alarming lack of people – besides what charred bits of Guardsmen had stuck to the husks of destroyed vehicles scattered here and there – the barns used to store the harvest hadn't avoided destruction either; glancing over her shoulder, she could see bare remnants of walls surrounding the rockcrete landing pad they'd just left behind.

Ahead of them, at the end of the winding dirt-track that clearly hadn't been designed with military transports in mind, the equally battered remnants of a town grinned at them. It was a grin missing a good few teeth, as Kathel couldn't help noting, most of the larger buildings that she could clearly see in the waning light of dusk from a few kloms away looking like bare shells of what they had once been, crumpled up and discarded to sit there like ghostly reminders of the battles that had just swept over them.

A sobering glimpse at the life that awaited her, all things considered. If nothing else, at least she could take some small comfort in the fact that most of the visible damage had been left by Imperial ordnance – and anything that could inflict such levels of devastation was a good thing to have at your back, so long as she managed to find a hole to dive into when the bombardment started.

"Ma'am!"

Barely audible over the roar of their engine as they clattered down the country road, Derichs' yell caught her slightly unprepared. Her considerations of where to find a hole of sufficient magnitude to shield her from such destruction as was etched into the countryside around them broken, Kathel leaned down, still pressing her cap to her head with one hand and clinging on to the pintle-mounted bolter with the other. "Yes?"

"The Colonel wants me-" They must have driven over one of the little presents left behind by the artillery, because the Salamander jerked with a loud clang, tossing the Commissar head-first into the metal. "-up to speed about the situation here!" If he'd heard the dull thud of her forehead meeting metal, then it was all one to him that she'd missed half of what he'd said, receiving a throbbing pain at the front of her head instead.

"Right!" Wary of getting up close and personal with the armour plating again, she pulled herself as far away from any surfaces as her arm's length would let her, trying to keep her ear turned to the driver's compartment. An undeniably awkward position that certainly undermined what little Commissarial dignity she still had left; happily, no one could see it. "Well, I don't think the racket's going to let us!"

"Wire your commbead into this frequency, ma'am!"

And, after a slight delay which must have consisted of looking for whatever scrap or dataslate he had the frequency written down on, Derichs began rattling off numbers with a cavalier disregard for her predicament. Unfortunately, another clang as they drove over yet another crater drowned out half of what he'd said, the Valhallan barely catching the other half between her frantic attempts to avoid another collision with the metal while simultaneously trying to prevent either her hat or herself from falling out of the vehicle.

Still unconcerned by the road's deteriorating quality, the trooper finished the frequency as calmly as though they'd been talking over dinner rather than the combined racket of an engine and a ruined dirt-track. She supposed he probably still hadn't dropped the lhostick in the corner of his mouth, either. "Did you get that, ma'am?"

In lieu of a reply, Kathel clicked the commbead. She did it with a certain amount of trepidation, it has to be said, as, for all she knew, she may as well have just cut into the internal network of the local pictcast service (the employees of which had probably been turned into biomass long ago, but still). "Derichs?"

"Reading you loud and clear, ma'am." She couldn't help a silent sigh of relief escaping her as she heard his voice, much clearer now that it was directly in her ear and still imperturbably calm beneath the crackling of the vox. "Now, about the 'nids."

As became clear from Derichs' explanation, the situation wasn't as apocalyptic as the young Valhallan had found herself dreading on her shuttle ride through the atmosphere. Not that it hadn't at one point been all that and worse, mind you – with over a third of its soldiers lost, the 507th could be counted among the luckier regiments; others apparently fared even worse, in some cases reduced to company or even platoon strength. With fighting this fierce, it comes without saying that the entirety of the Uskarian PDF had been turned into biomass long before Kathel stepped foot on the planet. To hear the Vanquese trooper tell it, however, that was probably a favour to the war effort as that way, the poorly trained and ill-equipped locals couldn't get under the Guard's feet nearly as much.

Thankfully, the situation was much improved by this point, largely because of the Imperial Navy's successes in finally destroying the Tyranid bioship presence over the planet – leaving only a few that it hadn't managed to finish off to limp out of the system and look for another potential snack elsewhere. To the regular Guardsman on the ground, this meant not only the possibility of orbital bombardment (which did indeed come - and with considerable gusto, as the Navy always prefers to shoot at targets that can't shoot back), but also reinforcements; in the shape of a Krieger siege regiment no less, tossed over fresh from stomping out some or other Ork hidey-hole across the sector.

The Kriegers responded to the new enemy the only way they knew how – with overwhelming force (which probably explained the state the countryside was in) – and things went downhill fast for the swarms from there. With no more easily attainable biomass now that all the civilians and PDFers were either already devoured or hiding behind a whole mess of Imperial guns, they were forced back, inch by bloody inch, until all that was left now was to mop it all up – at least, to hear the brass tell it.

"The planetary capital's still left though, ma'am, and with us being the only hivers around now that the Kriegers have packed up, if our next orders aren't to buckle up and charge it, I'm an Ork." Derichs concluded his little brief on that cynical note, leaving Kathel with the rumble of the Salamander's engines and her thoughts on what she'd just heard.

She wasn't really sure what to make of her new aide's slightly familiar tone, for starters; while she didn't want the average Guardsman so scared of her cap that they'd start plotting a little friendly fire incident before she even got to a battlefield, it would've boded better for her career as a Commissar if they at least registered the fact she had the authority of one, which Derichs didn't seem to be doing.

"I see," The Valhallan finally remarked with an audible lack of certainty to her voice. On the other hand, the usual somewhat mellifluous notes were starting to creep back in now that she was certain she wouldn't, at least, be turned into biomass on her very first day.

Whatever admonishments she might have to use in instilling at least a whiff of some form of respect could probably wait; especially given as, while Derichs had been bringing her up to speed, they'd finally reached the town that was the 507th's temporary quarters. Right on time, too, as the sun from which the planet had taken its name was inching ever closer to the horizon. As far as she could tell, they only had twenty or so minutes of sunlight left, and Kathel would've much preferred to have settled into whatever quarters had been assigned for her by nighttime.

Despite the late hour, though, it seemed the rank and file of the Vanquese regiment had no intention of resting. Heavy bolter barrels and even the occasional autocannon glared at her from half-collapsed window arches and doorways, patrolling troopers scurrying out of the way of their little convoy. She thought she could feel wary glances drilling into her backside as they passed, which wasn't all that surprising. None of them had witnessed the greatcoat debacle, after all – all they could see was her uniform, which didn't offer any answers as to her character.

And, as any Guardsman will tell you, when faced with a Commissar who's an unknown quantity, you should always tread cautiously until you find out if what you got is Ciaphas Cain or a trigger-happy psychopath (who should have an accident on the battlefield as soon as possible). Not in those exact words, of course, as back then the future hero of the Imperium was still barely a fully fledged Commissar himself, but the principle of the matter stands regardless.

Kathel, trundling along after the regiment's officers in the back of her Scout Salamander, could very much have turned out to be either at that point, as far as the troopers observing from the rubble of the streets below were concerned.

For her part, the Valhallan found the men and women of her new home unit as much of an unknown as she was to them. Given the dignity of her office, she couldn't precisely gawk openly at them, but this didn't stop her from shooting a few covert glances left and right. The dry information provided by the Munitorum slate still resting in an inner pocket of her coat could only tell her so much, after all, and beyond the fact they were allegedly something of an elite regiment, she couldn't say she knew all that much about the people she was supposed to be inspiring to perform glorious deeds.

The knee-length coat she'd noted on Derichs, camouflaged with urban environments in mind, turned out to be uniform among the Vanquese, worn invariably underneath the flak armour that had, in most cases, been coloured in much the same muted greys to help the wearers hide among the rubble and dust one could always expect to find in a city embroiled by war. There seemed to be a preponderance of Chimeras scattered throughout the rubble, which wasn't all that surprising for a mechanized regiment – what slightly was, though, was the easy familiarity with which the troopers treated them, going as far as decorating some with names etched or painted onto the hulls at the risk of reducing the techpriests attached to the unit to indignant hollering.

Huddled as most were around their transports, you could easily tell by comparing the respective heights of the troopers and their vehicles that Kathel's initial presumption about Vanquese generally being a couple inches short of what you'd consider average height had been accurate. Stocky builds seemed to predominate, however, and fortunately so - considering the abundance of heavy weaponry the Commissar had already noticed, which someone had to carry after all.

Judging from the ease with which the men and women of the 507th blended with their ravaged urban surroundings, perhaps there was something to this elite status after all. If the faint stench of charred flesh mingled with promethium still lingering over the streets was any indication, they couldn't have been there very long; and yet they seemed to have no problems hiding themselves as effectively as they would in their home hive, troopers leaping up a couple of times to rush out of their way from holes that she could've sworn hadn't been there moments earlier. Whether the Tyranids counterattacking was a real possibility or not, the soldiers seemed to treat it seriously (no doubt taking the harsh lessons of the early parts of the campaign to heart) – between the heavy weapons emplacements set up along key intersections, the carefully positioned snipers hiding in the rubble and the upper floors of those buildings who still had them, and the Chimeras' guns, the xenos would have had a hell of a time storming the ruined town.

"What with the smell, I take it the town is a recent victory?" It couldn't hurt to check if her assumptions were correct, as the Commissar figured, voxing Derichs. Now that they'd slowed to a fraction of their previous speed, she felt considerably more at ease, being able to let go of her cap and ease her grip on the pintle-mounted bolter (where her nails had probably left impressions).

The throb just above her right eyebrow, of course, cautioned the Valhallan against letting go entirely. While the physical damage from another similar bump might be negligible (if certainly annoying), any authority her predecessor's lingering ghost may have granted her could hardly be expected to recover if she flopped spectacularly where half the regiment could see her.

"Good nose, ma'am," Her aide voxed back, taking them into one of the broader streets where the rubble had been cleared away somewhat. On their lefthand side, on the first floor of a relatively intact house, a brown-haired woman with her helmet placed on the windowsill beside her shifted slightly, revealing her position to Kathel. "Cleared the last of the 'nids out yesterday morning; burned all the bodies soon as we could."

Feeling slightly smug over proving she wasn't completely headless in these things, she let her icy blue eyes wander around, making a bit of a game out of seeing if she could pick any of the concealed Vanquese out before they moved. "Standard operating procedure against Tyranid forces, burn the bodies so they can't turn them into biomass; good." The bit of Guard trivia she recited more for her own benefit than Derichs', who clearly had firsthand familiarity in these matters. "You seem to have wasted no time in setting up, too."

Taking advantage of the short stretch of straight road before them, her aide revved the engine a bit, the nose of their Salamander almost touching the rear of the Major's Command-pattern one. Alarmed by the increase in speed, Kathel clung to the bolter handle again, trying not to look as though she was scared for her life for the benefit of the observing Guardsmen. "Can take a hiver out of the hive, ma'am, but can't take the hive outta the hiver."

With that simple response, the tone with which it was spoken bordering on boredom, their conversation petered out, leaving the Commissar to enjoy the all-pervading militant atmosphere permeating the town every bit as persistently as the stench left by burned Tyranid and human corpses. It all reminded her of the Schola a bit, what with the air of rigid purposefulness surrounding everything that was going on, which gave her some small sliver of hope that, given enough time, she'd be able to figure out the regiment's rhythm and smoothly fall into her own place – more or less.

The question that really bothered her as they ground to a halt outside a half-decent looking building in the shadows of one of the town's few factories, then, was if anyone intended to give her that much-needed time.

"We're here, ma'am." Derichs announced, sounding as indifferent as ever as he killed the Salamander's engine. A bit of a pointless statement, given that anyone with half a brain (and Kathel had the good fortune to still have both halves - for the time being at least, as she caught herself noting gloomily) could've figured it out, just as she already had; he would hardly have just abruptly stopped on a whim while the rest of the officers' vehicles drove on, after all. Not without risking punishment – probably summary execution, given this was the prescribed punishment for nearly every imaginable offence - for wasting the Commissariat's time, anyway.

It was with considerable satisfaction that the Valhallan clambered out of the Salamander's passenger compartment. If she never had to ride the bloody thing over ravaged terrain again, it would be too soon.

Of course, now that she could feel the reassuring crunch of gravel and small bits of rubble underneath her boots, it occurred to her that she could have just sat down, squeezing what enjoyment could be squeezed out of a ride of this nature with significantly less issues, but there was no use crying over spilled amasec. Reasonable ideas often came late; and, in any event, if it hadn't been for lapses in common sense like that, Kathel didn't suppose she would ever have made it to full-fledged Commissar status, so she may as well have pretended it had all been intentional and in the name of putting on a martial show for the troops.

The crunching of her aide's boots joined hers as he got out of the Salamander, looking none the worse for the ride and still chewing on the filter of the unlit lhostick squeezed into the corner of his mouth. "The Colonel had some of the rubble cleared away from the front, but it was mostly good anyway," His arm's wide sweep was supposed to indicate the street around them – indeed comparatively free of debris compared to what she'd seen on the way there – but, for all the vagueness of the gesture, he may as well have been motioning towards Holy Terra. "This'll be your residence while we're here, ma'am."

Making a noise that could perhaps be construed as approval, she looked around. "Where is here, in any event? And where are the Colonel's headquarters? I can't have the officers scheming away from the watchful eyes of the Commissariat, after all."

If Derichs at all registered she was joking, he didn't let it show in the slightest. "The HQ's set up just over there, ma'am," He pointed over the shoulder with his thumb, expression just as drab as the greys of his camouflage. Not entirely sure whether this was his general demeanour or if he just didn't like her, Kathel decided to abandon further attempts at coming off as amicable for now, glancing instead at the factory he'd indicated.

Whoever it was that had been responsible for the bombardment of this particular town – probably the Krieger siege regiment she'd heard about earlier – must have been pulled away from their guns before getting this far, because the building, just as the house they were standing in front of and the majority of the rest surrounding them, seemed relatively undamaged. That, along with its relatively impressive size (certainly one of the larger structures in the entire town, even without most of the other landmarks being more or less levelled), probably accounted for Hofler's decision to set up his command post there.

All the vehicles attached to the regiment's headquarters must have been parked on the other side, as she could see the Command-pattern Salamanders rounding the corner further down the street. There was also the fact there didn't seem to be any enginseers about, which was one of the more notable hallmarks of any larger cluster of Guard vehicles.

"As for where we are," While the Commissar took the factory in, her aide addressed the other of her questions, taking the lhostick out of his mouth for what must've been the first time – only to put it back in, though this time squeezing it into the opposite corner. What exactly was stopping him from just lighting the damn thing up was beyond her. "Can't say I rightly know, ma'am. There weren't any roadsigns left by the time we rolled by, but I think the town's called Nordskawenplatz."

The Valhallan glanced at him, raising an eyebrow. "That's a bit of a mouthful."

"The planetary capital's called Skawenplatz, and we're just north of it, ma'am." Derichs shrugged. That explained that – as usual, the unimaginative nature of whoever it was that named half the places in the Imperium was to blame. Kathel was willing to wager there were at least three other similarly named towns scattered around the capital.

With the light of the sun fading fast as it sunk entirely behind the hills and the shattered contours of houses less fortunate than their own, the Valhallan decided she might as well see what it was that she'd have to deal with while the 507th remained in Nordskawenplatz. The exterior was promising, at least, and certainly better than what she'd expected. The building's front was the very image of an ordinary residence of a well-off citizen of the Imperium on a world like Uskarus II, save perhaps the Administratum seal emblazoned upon the door in faded gold (or something that looked a bit like gold, anyway), which probably meant it had once belonged to some or other bureaucrat working in the nearby factory.

Whether the previous owner had been a bureaucratic functionary of some sort or not, now it was all temporary property of the Commissariat. As she turned the handle on the door, Kathel couldn't help wondering if someone had taken the time to steal everything that hadn't been nailed down in the interim between the house's abandoning and her arrival, or at least smash everything still left intact once it turned out that the next inhabitant would be the regimental Commissar.

Once again, though, it turned out her fears were unfounded. For a place that had been assigned to her, a Commissar, by an officer of the Guard, it was all more than satisfactory.

While the ground floor showed some signs of being torn up during the fighting, with a few flowerpots' worth of shards and earth scattered about on the floor and the remains of what seemed to have once been a table swept into a pile in the corner, there must not have been that many Tyranids in this part of the town for the damage to be this light. Maybe even the xenos couldn't stand the overly elaborate chandelier casting a menacing shadow over the room, which was really the only thing that the previous owner could be faulted with in the fashion department. Other than that notable eyesore, the living room waiting beyond the small antechamber was surprisingly pleasant in its plain design.

A tentative flick of the light switch confirmed her suspicions about the power being out. However, Derichs, who'd displayed a cavalier disregard for the slightly plush carpet (which was stained with some sort of strange ichor anyway, probably a parting gift from the Tyranids) by stomping in with his combat boots, guessed her plight and pointed towards one of the doors leading further into the house.

"Cogboys found some sorta emergency generator downstairs, ma'am," He elaborated, his eyes lingering on the egregious chandelier, a shadow of amusement evident in them. "Doesn't have much juice in it, apparently, but they said it'd be good enough for some basic stuff, like-"

"Air conditioning!" Kathel's enthusiastic exclamation beat him to it, the Valhallan having crossed the living room with a spring to her step and swung the doors her aide had pointed out ajar. Perched on the table of the small office she found beyond was indeed that most coveted of items that she'd found herself dreaming of on the way there.

Realizing it probably wasn't appropriate for a Commissar to be this excited over something as mundane as that, she quickly fixed an indifferent expression. "I see," Her attempts at sounding offhand didn't entirely succeed, but she didn't really care, almost entirely engrossed in turning the handle on the device of her dreams.

After a slight delay, it coughed out a gust of mildly cool air. Frowning as only an iceworlder faced with insufficiently low temperature could, she set to work on finding the knob she needed. Derichs materialized in the doorway behind her, observing her with what probably passed for curiosity, with his woefully limited repertoire of expressions.

"Also got the lighting wired up to it, this room at least," He illustrated his statement by flicking the light switch on, bathing the office in the dim, flickering light of a luminator. Glancing up from the air-conditioner for a moment, she saw him shift the lhostick from one corner of his mouth to the other without the use of his hands. "Best not to leave it on, though, ma'am. Cogboys said something 'bout the machine spirits still being upset over all the 'nids; far as I figure, probably means it'll all go out if you stress the thing too much."

Well, if it came down to the choice of air conditioning or the light, Kathel would have gone with being comfortable and in the dark instead sitting in the spotlight and trying not to boil in her greatcoat, every time. _If _she could get the bloody thing to work, that is, which didn't seem likely at the moment as, for such a simple device, it seemed a bit too complicated for someone who wasn't a techpriest to operate.

Giving in to frustration, she slammed her fist on the air conditioner – and was instantly rewarded with a blast of chilly, if slightly stale air.

"Guess it doesn't matter though." As indifferent to the several degree drop in the room's temperature as he was to everything else, Derichs tilted his head slightly. "Had some theological training, ma'am?"

Whether or not he'd actually mistaken her fiddling and subsequent impotent irritation for the proper ritual of activation for the machine, the Valhallan couldn't really tell. "Guess their Omnissiah blesses the needy." She shrugged. Now that she was finally immersed in what, to an iceworlder, was a pleasant mild chill (which is to say steam was starting to come out of their mouths when they spoke), she was starting to feel almost at peace with the travails of her existence.

Of course, the galaxy had other ideas, determined as it was to keep her on the edge of her seat.

Just as the Commissar plopped down on the seat behind the small table and began taking in the rest of the office, her ear was filled with the unmistakeable crackling preceding a vox message.

"Commissar Sharpe?" A slightly uncertain and clearly male voice inquired from the other end of the comm signal. Her hand forced by necessity, Kathel pressed the response button, feeling her fingers grow slightly numb in anticipation of whatever mess it was that she was about to be dragged into. The throbbing at the front of her head seemed to intensify.

"I read you. Who is this?" The Throne alone knew if her attempt to sound at ease and authoritative had succeeded; she certainly hoped so, though.

"Regimental HQ," Apparently appeased by the fact he'd gotten the right person, the man on the other end of the comm seemed to relax slightly. "Colonel Hofler requests your presence, Commissar, to discuss marching orders."

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks for taking the time to read and review! Feedback of any sort (short of blatant flaming), especially concrit, is highly welcome. So, you know, don't be hesitant to leave a little (or a big) something in the box below if you only feel like it :P  
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	3. New Faces, New Orders

**CHAPTER THREE**

**New Faces, New Orders**

* * *

"_The Emperor moves his Hammer in mysterious ways;_

_they're called marching orders, and you're not privy to ours."_

-Lord General Rossol, to the Planetary Governor of Sepiroth

* * *

Despite being much less impressive in actual fact, the luminator beyond the opened service entrance of the factory seemed to pierce through the night with all the resolute brightness of the Astronomican. And a good thing it did, too, as Kathel found the soupy darkness of Uskarus II's moonless night every bit as chaotic as a Navigator would the unpredictable reaches of the Warp. Save, perhaps, for the notable absence of any daemons.

Those bits of treacherous rubble that had avoided the 507th's cursory cleanup seemed to fill the role adequately enough, though, getting under the Commissar's feet and almost tripping her up several times. Determined not to have to explain how her coat got so dusty, she soldiered on, keeping herself balanced through the worst of it with a combination of caution and (when the former inevitably failed her a couple of times) some rather spectacular flailing.

Fortunately, having predicted her plight, the outline of a trooper emerged in the doorway, a fair portion of the light blotted out by his stocky shape. "Through here, Commissar!" The man waved, his voice leaving no doubt as to this being the same person that had voxed her just minutes ago to relay the Colonel's request for her presence.

Feeling grateful for the guidance (though, as far as she was concerned, it was the least the Guardsman could do after dragging her out of the relative comforts of her temporary residence and its now-functioning air conditioner), Kathel hastened her pace, stepping over one of the larger bits of wall still littering the street. Now that her wandering had been directed at a specific point rather than just the general direction of the factory's looming outline, it took her no time at all to find herself before the service entrance – and the man who'd come out to greet her.

Though she couldn't see his face, what with the trooper's back being to the light and all, the Valhallan guessed his expression was one of stupefaction. When Guardsmen imagined a Commissar, after all, it was an image that rarely overlapped with that of a rather good-looking young woman - which was exactly what had happened in her particular case. As jarring a combination as it probably got, all things considered.

If he had been surprised, though, the Vanquese had to be commended for keeping it all to himself. "Right this way, Commissar," The rasp she'd ascribed to vox interference turned out to be a very real quality his voice possessed as he motioned behind himself and stepped out of her way, flooding her in what seemed like unbearably bright light.

Thankfully, the effect didn't last past a couple of blinks to adjust herself after the darkness outside, and soon Kathel could stride into the factory, contriving to look as authoritative and Commissarial as she possibly could.

While she certainly looked rather impressive, the room she'd stepped into was decidedly not so. Then again, it was very difficult indeed to make a bunch of Administratum paraphernalia (swept unceremoniously out of the way) and some Guard equipment - which seemed to have to do with short to medium range communications - look exciting. Unless her Schola education failed her, what she was looking at was probably the comm centre of the regiment, connecting the regimental HQ with its equivalents on the company level. If this was the case, then the trooper behind her was, in all likelihood, one of the vox operators.

The door shut behind her with a dull thud, announcing her presence.

Mustering all the curiosity anyone who looked as though they had been running entirely on recaff for the past few days could, a few of the Guardsmen looming over the comm equipment looked up. Under the circumstances, though, even a Commissarial uniform failed to impress, being met with a combination of lacklustre salutes and such utter indifference as could only be borne of sleep deprivation.

"Apologies, Commissar," The raspy-voiced trooper muttered. He looked a damn sight sprightlier than the vast majority of what Kathel presumed were his colleagues – which probably accounted for his being saddled with guiding her to wherever it was that the Colonel wanted her at; discussing marching orders, apparently. "There's been some issues setting up comms and, well, most of us haven't had a chance for some shut-eye since we took the town." As the hint of trepidation creeping into his voice made only too obvious, he appeared to be wondering whether the new regimental bogeyman wouldn't respond to such a blatant lack of respect by having the lot of them demoted to cleaning the latrines.

Deciding to mimic him and stay as quiet as she could so as not to disturb what certainly _looked_ like important work if nothing else, Kathel allayed whatever fears he may have had by nodding understandingly. "Duty above everything," She mumbled the sort of platitude you could expect to hear from a political officer on a minutely basis, motioning him onwards in hopes of getting on with this business of the Colonel's. With a bit of luck, she'd manage to return to her temporary quarters before dawn broke. She was yet to find her allotted bed, after all, which would hopefully turn out to be comfortable enough to allow her to sleep off the faint throbbing that persisted at the front of her head.

Taking the cue immediately, the Guardsman ushered her towards the only other door in the room besides the service entrance. "Through that way, Commissar."

Seeing as they didn't, as the Valhallan had expected them to, exit into the industrial space of the factory, they must have been in the part of the building that had been occupied by the Administratum bureaucrats (back before they had all been devoured, that is). She found herself staring at a drab corridor, narrow enough for two people to have trouble passing one another by; the already gloomy atmosphere hardly helped by the luminator on the ceiling flickering tentatively in what were likely its antemortem convulsions. While it was difficult to ascertain if it had been dying long before the Guard's arrival or if the 507th's attached techpriests simply hadn't managed to restore power to the factory entirely successfully, this didn't change the fact Kathel could only observe the doors lining the hallway on either side of them in an irritatingly unsteady light.

It wasn't long until the quivering light that seemed in danger of going out entirely at any second found its match in a nervous twitch in her right eye.

The vox operator seemed less troubled by the luminator's death throes. With an easy confidence that was probably the result of rushing up and down the corridor on numerous occasions beforehand, he guided her onwards, halting once or twice to check the nameplates (or what the Commissar guessed were nameplates, anyway) on one of the doors or another. They all looked the same to her, but he obviously knew better, so she elected to simply stay silent and trust his guidance.

By the time they arrived at the one he'd been looking for, they'd already rounded the corner, leaving the flickering that seemed to resonate with Kathel's throbbing headache behind them; instead, they had become immersed in the shadowy darkness left after the light hanging overhead had elected to go ahead and die with a bit of dignity rather than agonizing over it like its compatriot further up the corridor. A commendable decision as far as the Valhallan was concerned, even though she very much doubted that she'd be able to give up on life with such readiness, no matter how pointless trying to cling to it would have ultimately been.

Breaking her idle ruminations on death and dying brought on by the state of a hallway's lighting of all things, the trooper opened the door. "The hololith room is right here, Commissar," He illustrated his point with a helpful gesture inside, which made her feel slightly like a none-too-bright juvie. Not that it had been the man's intention to snub her, mind you – he probably wouldn't have dared to, what with the winning combination of a Commissarial cap and a bolter pistol (whose outline was just obvious enough beneath her coat) that was plain for everyone to observe on her person. "The Colonel and his staff will be right along."

Nodding to let him know he could bugger off now, she brushed past him, just managing to squeeze out "Thank you," before the door shut behind her, leaving the young Commissar alone.

Left to her own devices, Kathel took the time to sniff around the designated conference room. At least, that's what she would have called it; the hololithic display dominating its centre certainly seemed to suggest as much, surrounded by a handful of chairs that had all the hallmark signs of having been scrounged together from wherever was convenient. Notably, it seemed that Hofler preferred to plan in comfort, since she presumed the armchair at the opposite end of the display table from the door could only have belonged to him. Maybe the leather was a bit torn up and dusty in spots, but it certainly looked comfortable – enough so to make her consider dropping into it for a moment to recuperate after all the rushing about that she'd had to deal with ever since the dingy little spaceship requisitioned to carry her and her colleagues to Uskarus II had dropped out of the Warp.

With her luck, though, someone would walk in on her and force her to abandon it in a flurry of embarrassment, which was enough to dissuade her in the end. Instead, the Valhallan glanced at the door, busying herself with attempts at imagining how, precisely, had the Vanquese managed to squeeze the chair into the room. It certainly didn't look like something that had been there originally, since any Administratum bigwig allowed a seat that impressive would have, first and foremost, secured themselves a bigger office – the 507th's temporary hololith room was a bit on the cramped side, which she strongly suspected would have been the case even without its current military decor.

That line of thought didn't hold her interest for long, however, broken when the Commissar caught sight of something that was far more welcome and intriguing than the Colonel's armchair; a hallowed (as far as she was concerned, in any event) object that she'd already wrestled with back in her own quarters.

Sitting in the corner was the unmistakeable shape of an air-conditioner, looking much the same like the example she'd already had the joy to encounter. Whether that meant the regiment hauled a couple of them around with itself or that this was a popular model with the Uskarians, she couldn't claim to know – nor did she care to, the sole fact of its presence being enough to satisfy her, no further questions asked.

Its presence was well warranted, for that matter. Whether it was the conspicuous lack of windows and apparently even ventilation of any sort, or its positioning in the factory – perhaps next to some piece machinery with unduly high heat emissions – even the Vanquese must have found the conference room a bit too warm for their tastes. To an iceworlder, it might as well have been a boiling cauldron, as Kathel noted unhappily, tugging on the collar of her shirt.

It may have been off up until she had entered the room, presumably in the interests of conserving power and not stressing whatever generator it was that the attached enginseers of the 507th had scrounged together for the regimental HQ, but that state of affairs would not continue for much longer. Feeling uplifted by her previous fight with a similar device, the Commissar confidently strode over and gave it a good whack, turning a few knobs for good measure. It had worked once before, after all – so why not again?

Her determined assault was apparently enough to advise the machine spirit residing within against further resistance. Maybe the official ritual of activation really was banging the thing around a bit; or maybe it simply realized it was dealing with a Valhallan, one who wasn't going away until she got what she wanted. Regardless, her efforts were rewarded with a gust of chilly air, the air conditioner sputtering at first but soon falling into a steady rhythm not dissimilar to what she'd left Derichs with back in her quarters.

In fact, it performed admirably enough for Kathel to feel entirely comfortable even with her greatcoat on by the time the Vanquese officers began streaming into the room.

They were, all of them, much the same faces as she'd been introduced to right after her arrival, though a couple short – with the handful of lieutenants (and Derichs, obviously) being absent. Notably, they'd all taken the chance to change from their parade uniforms, too, with the captains now sporting much the same kit as their troops - camouflaged coats of muted greys included. The only difference between the rank-and-file and the Colonel and his second in command, meanwhile, was that the latter weren't wearing any flak armour.

"Commissar Sharpe," Hofler, at the head of the little knot of Guardsmen as could be expected, spared her a nod and a polite smile. If he'd been surprised to find the room cold enough for his words to leave a light mist in their wake, the Colonel was doing an admirable job of not letting it show. "I was hoping to find you already here."

Though their superior was either polite or obstinate enough not to let his discomfort show, the other officers were evidently less so, in either or both regards. Surprise was plastered upon every face besides Kathel and Hofler's, with a good few rubbing their hands together for warmth and glaring at the air conditioner angrily.

Major Mewsen turned out to be the first to give voice to their dissatisfaction, unsurprisingly, indicating the culprit device with her thumb. "Did the bloody thing break again?"

"No," Now it was the Commissar's turn to look slightly surprised, oblivious as she was to everyone else's predicament. Being an iceworlder meant that feeling cold was something that only happened to other people, particularly when you found yourself on planets that weren't frozen balls of snow and ice like whatever rock you crawled from with the frequency that she did. "I'd say it's working near perfectly, isn't it?"

If looks could kill, the 507th would have needed a new regimental Commissar. "I guess it is, now that you put it that way, Commissar." It was fortunate the room was already chilly, or Mewsen's tone would certainly have forced the temperature to drop by at least a dozen degrees or so.

Finding out their new morale officer was behind this rare example of indoors freak weather appeared to be enough to dissuade the Vanquese officers from either complaining about it aloud or trying to mess with the air conditioning themselves. There was also the fact most probably had even less of a clue than Kathel about how the thing worked; it all lead to the same thing, though, with the small handful taking their respective places around the hololithic display without anyone making a fuss of the issue. Just as she'd expected him to, Hofler occupied the armchair at the end of the table-shaped device.

"I, for one, welcome a bit of crisp air," He remarked in an offhand fashion, switching the hololith on. "Helps you think, no?"

Something that could vaguely be construed as a grumble of agreement rolled over the ranks of the assembled officers. Most were probably too busy wrapping their coats tighter around themselves to form more coherent answers.

A few quizzical glances were shot the Valhallan's way when she didn't take a seat, electing instead to stand by the wall with her hands behind her back. While it may have been more comfortable to sit, though, she'd had it hammered into her head back in the Schola that this was precisely what a Commissar was supposed to do. Observe the Guardsmen under your charge by keeping them at arm's reach, and you can perform your duty to the Throne admirably.

At least, that's what her tutor liked to say. In practice, the 'aloof' Commissar was probably only slightly less likely to have an accident than the 'trigger-happy psychopath' variety.

It was all one to her, though. She wasn't stupid enough to think she'd manage to make friends of the people sitting in that room; certainly not stupid enough to try to, either, something that would have only made things awkward and, in the long run, very difficult. So, seeing as simply wishing for your predicted lifespan to lengthen didn't make it so, she would have to work whatever angles she could to achieve that – and if that involved standing far behind everyone else with a hand on her pistol, so be it.

The hololithic display flickered to life, forcing her back to the there and then as a garbled mess of an image materialized in the air above it. For all its clarity, it could have been trying to depict anything from the latest census data from Holy Terra to a picture of Kathel and the rest of the Commissarial Cadets' scrumball players posing after a match they'd won. Neither presumably being the reason for their assembly, it became clear that the hololith was determined not to function properly; all the more so when the unintelligible gibberish hovering above the table was crowned by the hiss of static.

"Ah." Hofler raised an eyebrow, glancing at his second. "Major, would you mind..?"

With a nod, Mewsen leaned forward, banging her fist resolutely on the surface of the hololith in a display of theological knowledge on par with Kathel's own. The hololith's image flickered for a moment - only to rearrange itself into another twitching ball of nonsense. To see the officers stare at it, you could almost think they were reading something out of it, but the Major's visible irritation made it amply clear she'd had more luck with the device on earlier occasions.

"Call one of the cogboys, sir?" One of the captains finally spoke up, a stocky chap with cropped black hair who looked like he'd come to the Guard straight out of the Arbites – though whether their ranks or their custody was up for debate.

Before the Colonel could respond, though, the Commissar stepped forward. Squeezing herself between a wiry man who may have passed for a relative of Hofler's were it not for his large beaked nose completely unlike the Colonel's own, and a woman who had apparently used the interim between the formal reception and this meeting to crawl around in enough dirt and dust to pass for someone straight out of the trenches of Vraks, she gave the hololith a few bangs of her own; much to everyone's surprise, the image started clearing up, taking on a halfway coherent shape.

With most of the officers looking suitably impressed - maybe even enough so to overlook the fact she was the reason why everyone's words were punctuated by small puffs of steam - the Valhallan slinked back to her corner of the room, wondering if it was too late for her to change careers and join the Mechanicus. Mewsen was clearly less overawed by her Omnissiah-blessed fist, grumbling something about 'loosening the thing for her' under her nose. The static gave way to Gothic (still distorted by the poor quality of the transmission, but coherent speech all the same), however, forcing the Major to shift her attention to the newly formed holo-image instead.

"507th, do you read?" A male voice burred from the hololith's speakers, what had recently looked like scale model of the chaotic reaches of the Warp turning out to be a head. A rather impressive head, too - broad and with a stern expression etched deep into its slightly wizened face, thick straight eyebrows frowning imposingly enough to make lesser people flinch. Good thing there were no such individuals in the room, Kathel thought sardonically as she tried to weasel her way to a corner where the head hopefully couldn't spot her behind the Vanquese officers. "By the Golden Throne, if this thing doesn't work this instant, I'll take your dendrites and shove them-"

"We read you, sir," Hofler interjected before they could find out where was it, exactly, that the owner of the head floating above the display intended to stick his techpriests' mechadendrites. "Seems we have some technical issues, but you are intelligible on this end, for now. Can you confirm..?"

Turning an interesting shade of red, the slightly distorted head turned to the Colonel. It must have been even more impressive in reality - even the machine spirits in the display seemed alarmed, the image starting to quiver more intensely. "I'll confirm, Colonel! I'll confirm that these cogboys are a frakking waste of resources and the Admech can choke on them! Soon as this campaign's over, I'm having you wire-chewing rats tossed back in whatever sumphole it is you crawled from, because you weren't taught in Mars, sure as the Throne is golden!"

The Vanquese must have been used to this sort of thing from whoever this head belonged to, because not a person seemed bothered, Kathel finding only dead serious faces as she glanced around the room in mild confusion. Seeing this to be the case, she decided she wasn't going to look impressed either - to preserve what dignity her battered Commissarial cap still conferred upon her, if nothing else.

"Ten minutes," Dissatisfied with merely hollering his point across, the man must have slammed a fist down on his hololith to punctuate it, because the image quivered again. "Ten minutes they've been fiddling with this thing, trying to get it to show something that didn't look like an Ogryn's armpit! Ten minutes..!"

Rather abruptly, his fury seemed to have run out of steam at that point, though, trailing off and leaving a slightly uncomfortable note to hang over the 507th's conference room in a distant echo of what the room on the other end of the connection must have felt like. The storm gathering over the responsible techpriests' heads certainly seemed a terrible one, especially if the head belonged to whom the Valhallan thought it did.

As if on cue, Hofler confirmed her suspicions, leaning forward as he exploited the moment of calm to address the holo-image. "Lord General, I was told to expect new marching orders tonight? Sir..?"

"Tonight! Tonight..." A rather meaty hand swept abruptly into view from outside the frame as Lord General Morcant, the most powerful man in the Uskarus system if not the entire subsector, scratched his chin. Now that she'd had it spelled out for her, the Commissar could certainly see the resemblance the flickering holo-image bore to its much clearer counterpart on one of her dataslates. "What, is it already night over in Hord... the frakpot you're stuck inside?"

Hofler opened his mouth to respond, but he was cut off by Morcant shaking his head. "Don't answer that, it's a rhetorical question, Colonel. Didn't use to be, but the bloody boltbuckets tell me it's just past nightfall where you are, in a town called 'Nordskawenplatz'. Whoever named it needs to be shot... Right after these 'know-it-all' Admech frakkers've been dealt with."

The Valhallan had to admit - this Lord General was certainly a far more vigorous personality than she'd expected a man of his rank to be. His hollering had a way of filling the room even without the help of the amplivox built into the hololith's speakers, if nothing else, which she supposed had been one of the reasons for his promotion to a rank responsible for such immense power. And if he commanded battles with anything approaching the enthusiasm with which he wailed on his techpriests, well – that was probably one of the other reasons.

"But that's right; you've got a shiny new Commissar for all that good business!" Kathel stomach churned as she suddenly heard herself mentioned. "Where is he?" Morcant's massive head whirled around at a dizzying speed, picking through the officers seated around the table. If he'd expected to find the new acting member of the Commissariat in the 507th to be male, though, he was to be sorely disappointed.

"She, sir. Present." Steeling herself, the Valhallan stepped forward, feeling all eyes upon her as she nodded and tried to look as confident and Commissarial as only a Progena could.

She may have succeeded, too, had her cap not proven itself a traitor, remembering at the worst possible time that it was two sizes too large for her head and falling over her eyes.

With a motion that she hoped looked more like a nonchalant sweep of the hand to fix her hair rather than the obvious attempt to cover up her embarrassment that it actually was, she lifted the hat off her eyes, returning to the room to find herself being stared at by what was clearly a rather bemused Lord General. Bemusement did not take long to turn into fury as his beady dark brown eyes, looking a bit like two pieces of flint pressed into his skull, took in he clearly feminine figure.

"Adeptus Moronicus cog-rats!" His face reddened again in an obvious sign of danger, and if the techpriests responsible weren't running frantically out of the room that very instant, Kathel had to commend them for their bravery. "I wasn't asking about the Scalians' new Commissar, I was asking about the Vanquese 507th! Get it through your thick metal skulls, VAN-QUESE FIVE-HUNDRED-"

The machine spirit residing in the display had apparently had enough of transmitting such abuse directed at its loyal (if apparently slightly incompetent) caretakers – Morcant's voice trailed off into unintelligible static, the holo-image descending into a senseless mess once more. Just when the Commissar was considering giving it another bang, though, the Lord General's already familiar head returned into focus.

Panting silently, Morcant sounded remarkably calmer now that he'd presumably ripped the techpriests' heads off, or whatever it was that had happened while the hololink was down. "So she, then. Alright... alright. Commissar Sharpe, wasn't it?"

"Yes, sir." She nodded once more, this time less enthusiastically. If the Lord General had been tactful enough not to notice her cap slipping over her eyes the first time, a repeat of the incident would have certainly brought with it another bout of hollering, dripping with rage and spittle. Considering that even hearing the most powerful man upon the face of the planet wail on someone else was enough to make her feel numb in the fingers, it was an experience Kathel intended to do everything in her power to avoid.

"Well then!" Morcant's voice boomed. Apparently, gradation of its volume was something that only applied to others, as far as he was concerned. "I look forward to finally having someone around who can actually shoot the Colonel next time he decides not to follow orders!"

In sharp contrast with the Lord General's laughter, a dread chill seemed to descend over the conference room – and this time it had nothing to do with Valhallan air conditioning practices. As she felt every officer's eyes drill accusingly into her, Kathel dearly wished she could tell Morcant to put a sock in it; alas, while she may have been outside the chain of command, there was the little matter of lacking the courage to tell someone of his rank to frak off. Instead, all the Commissar could do was stand there and wonder how, precisely, had her predecessor managed to deal with all this – and how was it that he hadn't decided to end it all by jumping into a swarm of ravenous Tyranids sooner.

"You'll have your hands full with this one." Either oblivious or indifferent to the poor reception his joke of sorts had received, Morcant turned to the Colonel, apparently forgetting her for the moment. The Commissar took this as permission to slink back into her corner, not even the pleasant cold still lingering in the room able to help her thoroughly ruined mood. "This 'career' of yours can only end on the wrong end of a Commissar's pistol, Hofler, and I can't say I'll miss you when you're gone."

Hofler weathered the Lord General's glare with commendable calmness for someone who had just been threatened with execution. "If such a day comes when I can no longer serve the Emperor in a satisfactory manner, I will gladly accept being relieved from my post in such a manner." Even the aristocratic manners couldn't entirely hide the fact he was only too well aware of walking along a chainsword's edge. Rather impressively, though, the slightly uneasy glint in his eyes was the only giveaway. "Until then, with all due respect, sir, I believe you intended to give the 507th its marching orders."

"Yes... Orders." Scratching his chin again, Morcant apparently decided that the Colonel's remark was reasonable enough to leave him alone for now. He glanced to the side and inclined his head meaningfully; seeing as it didn't appear to be directed at anyone on their end, Kathel could only presume the motion had been meant for someone in the Lord General's conference room.

As his head turned into the slightly distorted but unmistakeable shape of a planet, the Commissar congratulated herself on her accurate assumption. It didn't take much to recognize that this was Uskarus II from the shapes of the two continents that she could see, what with the image of the world having unsurprisingly etched itself deep into her memory - she'd spent a considerable amount of her time aboard the ship requisitioned to transport her to the warzone cursing it and its decision to look like an attractive snack to Tyranids, after all.

She hadn't been in the mood to admire the world from space when she'd arrived, and she certainly didn't feel like staring at its scale representation now. In a moment, it was all academic anyway as the image zoomed in at a pace breakneck enough to impart a mild sense of vertigo.

Plunging through the atmosphere in much the same way Kathel had a bit earlier that day, they finally stopped over what looked to be a town; a label materialized over it, confirming her suspicions that this was supposed to be Nordskawenplatz. If this was so, then it only made sense for the green icons nestled within it to be indicating the 507th, while the smattering of red ones she could only presume to mean the remnants of the Tyranid swarms.

Moments later, arrows appeared over the terrain, indicating that most of the red icons were withdrawing south. A few, though, seemed to be mulling about with no discernible logic to their movements, the reason for which she could only guess at until Morcant's voice began emanating from the hololith's speakers, reminding them that the Lord General was still present on the other end of the connection despite the absence of his face.

"The bugs don't seem interested in taking your hole back, far as the Navy's recon tells us. Not surprising - now that they've lost most of their synapse critters, most may as well be animals. Forget those; we'll take care of them once the bugs're squashed completely. The key to that is getting rid of all the big ones -"

Mirroring his words, those enemy icons that appeared to be nonsensically prowling the countryside faded, leaving them to focus on those moving south. While slightly thinned in number, however, they were still far too many for Kathel's tastes; it didn't help that there was no indication as to the number of Tyranids each marker represented.

While her imagination was busy painting images of a landscape crawling thick with xeno monstrosities and bio-titans, the image zoomed out slightly, revealing the Tyranids to be withdrawing towards a cluster of buildings several times the size of Nordskawenplatz.

Remembering Derichs' speculation, the Commissar felt her fingers grow numb. This could only be Skawenplatz, the planetary capital.

"- which means moving on the hole where most of the big bugs're holed up. Lair of the beast, if we're being dramatic."

Surprisingly, a few of the officers appeared to cheer up a bit when green arrows connected the 507th to the capital, plotting a path deep into its streets. Then again, though it looked to Kathel to be a collection of narrow corridors of death that the Tyranids were just waiting to trap them in, the city must have smelled strongly of home to the Vanquese. Not cramped enough to remind of a real hive, maybe, but an urban environment all the same.

A purple icon flared up near the centre of Skawenplatz, forcing everyone's attention to the building – or rather the fairly massive complex of buildings and gardens - it was hanging over.

"You'll be hitting the place from the north; your goal is the Planetary Governor's palace." Morcant explained. The green arrows continued forging their way onwards through the city streets. "Once you've smoked the bugs outta there – be prepared to keep going to link up with the Widrunian regiments coming in from the south."

The image zoomed out further still, revealing a mess of darker green icons waiting south of the city, their arrows already plotted; some branched off towards other notable structures in the city, but others still appeared to be headed towards the same purple icon as the 507th's. "They're supposed to get to the palace too, eventually, but truth be told they're all green as Orks and I won't be surprised if they can't get past the cathedral."

Silence reigned for a moment. The Vanquese officers took the chance to look slightly smug, basking in the recognition of their superior competence, but Kathel couldn't help pondering upon ways to stay as far away from any actual combat as possible. It didn't take a genius to figure out city fights were brutal for everyone involved; even with the Tyranids looking to be pretty battered, it didn't sit well with her to rush into a place full of nooks and crannies where alien monstrosities with unnaturally sharp appendages were certain to be lurking, just waiting for a careless Commissar to devour.

Morcant's head suddenly reappeared, forcing everyone's attention back to him. "There's your marching orders. Move out at dawn and keep moving 'till you run out of bugs to squash. I hope for your sake you're not going to hold back on a whim again, Hofler, now that you have the Commissariat looking over your shoulder."

With that final remark that made the Commissar flinch slightly, the light within the hololith died. She couldn't stop herself from thinking that the Emperor had a very twisted sense of humour. What the Valhallan had hoped for was a couple days' worth of relative calm to help ease her into the duties of a morale officer; what it seemed she'd be getting instead was a baptism by fire and a crash course in urban warfare.


	4. The Bloodying

**Author's Note: Thank you very much for all the feedback so far! I return from my writer's block to tell you that I haven't forgotten about this in the slightest, so have a fresh chapter and my advance apologies for any dip in quality you might notice; I don't think I'm entirely back in shape yet (but then I never had much of a shape to speak of, so oh well :P)**

* * *

**CHAPTER FOUR**

**The Bloodying**

* * *

"_Ain't no plan that survives contact with the enemy._

_Most soldiers don't, either."_

Sergeant Neidel, Armageddon 124th Steel Legion

* * *

The staff meeting dragged on for a while after the conclusion of Morcant's transmission. Exchanging the Lord General's head for a map of the stretch of land between Nordskawenplatz and the suburbs of the Uskarian capital, the 507th's officers discussed at some length the possible routes of advance. Most didn't seem particularly charmed by the vagueness of the intel provided by the Imperial Navy's orbital scans; in the Guard, though, you learned to work with what you had.

Rather unsurprisingly, they chose to exclude Kathel from the planning, leaving her to her own devices in her corner of the conference room. Where most of her colleagues might have attempted to butt in and offer their advice on matters, however, she found this to be an entirely satisfactory state of affairs.

After all, though she had been taught bits and pieces about the Tyranids in the Schola, whatever she may have remembered of her classes could not compare to a campaign's worth of experience fighting the oversized bugs - so she was completely fine with not having to embarrass herself further by underlining how inexperienced she was compared to everyone else in the room. There was enough on her plate without having to worry about anything beyond nodding and pretending to be far more enthusiastic than she actually felt when the Colonel proposed she attach herself to Fourth Company's Second Platoon, anyway.

"Just the place for a Commissar," Her words punctuated by a slight mist of smoke - just like everyone else's, thanks to the unusually low temperature that still reigned in the room thanks to her earlier efforts - the Valhallan flashed the officers what she hoped might pass for a confident smile at the order framed like a suggestion (an act that fooled no one, least of all her), pushing her hat up slightly. No need to have the scraps of dignity she still had left undercut by its falling over her eyes again. "I'm sure I'll be far more useful in the thick of things than sitting about in the headquarters."

In truth, though, she felt a lot less confident than she would have had the officers believe. It was at moments like these, in fact, that Kathel couldn't help but wonder what was it that had possessed her father to go off and die heroically. Maybe he hadn't realized that securing his daughter a spot in the Schola effectively ruined all her chances of having a normal childhood and dramatically shortened her life expectancy in one fell swoop; or maybe he just didn't care, caught up as he had apparently been in that favourite of Valhallan pastimes – killing Orks.

Regardless of what he did and didn't understand about the repercussions it would have for his daughter, Kearn Sharpe had decided to go out by blowing up a whole explosives depot together with the greenskin Warboss inside it. The only thing his sole offspring had to show for it was a fancy hat – and all that did was underline the fact it wouldn't have done at all for her to refuse the chance to accompany the platoon at the front of the column expected to run into the bulk of the Tyranids still making their way to Skawenplatz.

After all, a Commissar was expected not only to stick their head into the noose, but be enthusiastic about it, too. This wasn't the only perk of the job, either; there were also those incredibly awkward conversations about breaches of protocol and issues of morale, one of which lurked in Kathel's very near future.

Adamant to at least pretend to be doing her job properly, the Valhallan remained in her corner when the Vanquese officers finally started getting up from their seats and streaming out the door, her eyes trying to catch Hofler's. The Colonel seemed to have caught the hint, seeing as he motioned for Mewsen to go on without him.

"I'd like to discuss something with Commissar Sharpe, Major," Though he sounded just as polite as he always did, there was an edge to his voice that suggested it was best she did what he said without questions. "In private."

Hesitating briefly, Mewsen finally relented with a slow nod. Having weathered her last suspicious glance with commendable indifference, Kathel felt pleasantly surprised with herself as the Major shut the door with a loud 'thud'. In the face of the weighed silence that descended over the room, however, the slight boost she'd derived from facing the glare down without so much as an uncomfortable twitch withered away quickly.

For a moment, the only noise was the faint whirring of the air conditioner, the machine spirit within toiling away in blissful ignorance of the organics' discomfort.

Not entirely certain where to begin, the Commissar pushed her hat up slightly. Hofler beat her to it, however.

"I presume this will be about the Lord General's remark." Considering he was about to discuss what looked to be a previous breach of regulations on his part with a person who specialized in summary executions for precisely that sort of thing, the Colonel was commendably calm. In a rather gentlemanly display, he motioned at one of the seats and waited for Kathel to drop into it before sitting down himself. "I could hardly expect you not to take an interest in things of that nature, after all."

Deciding she might as well follow Hofler's lead and lay her cards on the table without much dillydallying, the Valhallan nodded. "That's correct, Colonel." She put her elbows on the now-dormant hololith display; after a moment's hesitation, her Commissarial cap was placed upon it as well. Promoting a somewhat informal atmosphere couldn't hurt – especially since she was already quite certain she was going to let him off. Executing the commanding officer on her very first day wouldn't exactly help her standing with the rest of the regiment, after all.

Shifting slightly in his seat, the Colonel leaned forward. "Then it would be remiss of me not to tell you everything. I know from experience that lies always find a way to come to the fore eventually, and I would rather not undermine your trust in my integrity by having some detail I neglected to mention surface at a later point in time."

"Honesty would be appreciated." Things seemed to be going infinitely more smoothly than she had imagined they would, so Kathel was only too happy to nod affirmatively. "Some of my colleagues might disagree with such methods, but I prefer to hear the story before passing any sort of judgement on the parties involved."

It may have been giving herself too much credit to claim she had 'methods' of any sort after having been a fully fledged Commissar in the field for a grand total of several hours. In all honesty, though, the Valhallan didn't see how her determination to do everything that was in her power to keep herself alive was any worse than the psychotic rampaging of a fair portion of her colleagues.

"A commendable attitude, Commissar, if you'll permit me to say." Hofler smiled. You could just see the slight traces of relief in his expression. No doubt, he hadn't been entirely certain if Kathel wouldn't decide to compensate for the faux pas of her shuttle disembarkation with a rash of field executions – starting with him. "To business, then..."

"I'm afraid it is as the Lord General says – I find myself guilty of disobeying his orders." His smile took on a tinge of sadness. "Or, to be more precise, of intentionally delaying their execution."

Not sure if she should act outraged already, Kathel opted instead to adopt the Colonel's politely curious demeanour. "Please elaborate."

"This was... hm, let me see..." His thin, straight eyebrows creased as he tried to remember. "Roughly a month before your arrival, Commissar. Per Lord General Morcant's orders, the 507th was to accompany an armoured regiment – the 47th Dakian - in achieving a breakthrough against the xenos, allowing the Scalian infantry regiments bogged down holding the line to mop them up and move on."

Scratching her cheek, the Valhallan thought she could sense where this was going. "Things didn't go entirely as planned, I take it."

"Quite." The Colonel nodded slowly, almost reluctantly. "The 47th Dakian was bogged down en route to the jumping-off point. Had I elected to follow the Lord General's orders to the letter, this would have meant launching the assault without armoured support."

He paused for a moment, giving Kathel the chance to make a sympathetic noise. She could understand the appeal of having a mess of tanks to hide behind only too well, what with what awaited her in the uncomfortably near future. Of course, this wasn't a sentiment she could display in a fashion any more overt than an uncertain 'hm' – a Commissar was supposed to be firmly on the side of suicidal insanity, after all.

Hofler carried on. Not before giving her a slightly strange look, though, which made her worry if she hadn't perhaps overdone the 'somewhat reasonable morale officer' act a bit. "Instead of going on with the assault without armoured support, I elected to wait. Even though the operation was successful when it could finally proceed, Lord General Morcant disapproved of my call rather strongly – as you have had the opportunity to observe. The regrettable death of our previous Commissar much earlier into the campaign spared me from any immediate repercussions, however."

"Of course, the position has now been filled." Feeling as though the conversation was about to take a turn for the incredibly uncomfortable, she trudged onwards all the same, resting a hand on her Commissarial cap for added strength as much as to underline her position. "By me."

"Exactly." As inconspicuously as he could, the Colonel pulled the folds of his coat tighter together. Evidently, he was nowhere near as comfortable with the room's temperature as the Valhallan, even if he did a good enough job of not letting it show.

For a moment, the only thing disturbing the gloriously awkward silence was, once again, the cheerful, if slightly laboured whirring of the air conditioner.

Kathel was the first to break it this time. "You were entirely aware at the time that you were disobeying a direct order by your commanding officer?"

Apparently determined to see through his promise of telling everything as it had happened, Hofler nodded. Even as they drew ever nearer to the most dangerous part of the conversation, though, the air of polite curiosity over what was going to happen next did not fail him. Had the Commissar not already decided not to make unnecessary trouble for herself by going after the commanding officer literally right after stepping off the shuttle, his commendable demeanour may well have been enough to sway her; even if she did harbour an inkling of doubt over whether he wasn't simply playing her and trying to get on her good side, you had to admire someone who could stare death in the face with little more than a slightly uneasy glint to his eyes.

"If that's the case then you understand, of course, that I can't let this slide entirely." She did her best to sound matter-of-factly and professional. After the protracted period of uncertainty (and occasional self-inflicted humiliation) that she'd been through, it felt weird - being the one supposedly in charge of the situation."This will be remembered and, should anything of the sort happen in the near future, I won't be as lenient as I might have otherwise been. In other words – consider yourself watched, Colonel."

He nodded again. "I understand completely."

"For the time being, though? I can't see anything that could be gained from dealing with your infraction in the... usual manner." From the lips of any other Commissar, those words would have likely amounted to 'I'll shoot you once this is over', and this was likely how the Colonel had interpreted them. For some reason, Kathel didn't feel compelled to point out that, coming from her, this was more of a promise to forget the whole thing so long as he didn't go out of his way to make her jump through any more hoops than she already needed to.

Slowly, the Valhallan lifted from her seat, putting her cap back on. For a moment, she glanced at the air conditioner, wondering if the one back in her assigned quarters hadn't broken down in her absence; then, she turned back to the Colonel.

"The Commissariat gives us wide autonomy in handling our respective regiments, but in the end, each Commissar's duty is shaped by regulations first and personal judgement second." Feeling slightly ridiculous but nonetheless trying to ensure her words carried the necessary weight for Hofler to take them seriously, she pushed her cap up slightly. After its betrayal during her brief introduction to the Lord General, it didn't seem like she would feel it safe to stop doing that anytime soon. "Remember that, Colonel."

"I hope I will not have reason to force your hand in the matter, Commissar." He smiled pleasantly, the veiled threat failing to put a dent in his armour of aristocratic manners. "It would be most inconsiderate of me to add to your already considerable workload."

"I'd appreciate that." Stepping towards the door, Kathel smiled faintly; under her breath, she was silently congratulating herself on getting through the entire conversation without undermining her authority somehow. "Good night, Colonel."

"Likewise, Commissar." Hofler rose from his armchair. "I hope you can put the hours left until dawn to better use than myself."

With the door shutting silently behind her, the young Commissar found herself standing alone in the factory corridor, immersed in the dim shadows left by the failed luminator hanging overhead. For some reason, she felt awfully tired all of a sudden. Perhaps it was just the sleepless hours on the spaceship that had carried her to Uskarus II catching up with her. Or maybe, it was that it had only just sunk in that she was going to spend the entirety of her foreseeable future stuck dealing with a Colonel who had made an enemy of a Lord General and a Major who seemed to disdain her in her Commissarial entirety, from the top of her hat to the soles of her boots.

The challenges of her future, however, would have to wait until just then – her future. As she struggled to hold back a yawn, Kathel's only thoughts were of dropping into a soft bed and dreaming sweet dreams filled with all the best things in life: scrumball victories, Valhallan sunrises and steaming kettles of tanna.

* * *

In the event, though, the Commissar dreamed of nothing quite so pleasant. As a matter of fact, she hardly got to dream of anything at all. At what must have been around three in the morning, an Earthshaker battery that had apparently set up a few miles north of Nordskawenplatz began hammering away at the stretch of countryside lying between the 507th and the planetary capital - and never quite shut up. Typical though they may have been of the front, the Valhallan was unaccustomed to such noises; thus, her only choice was to lie awake in bed and stare at the darkness, only the distant booming of the artillery guns to distract her from imagining chitin-clad horrors of all shapes and sizes scuttling around the room.

It was no surprise that, after such a night, even the mug of recaff that Derichs had secured for her failed to wake her up entirely.

As dawn broke over the town with every sign of reluctance, dispelling the soupy grey shadows of the twilight hours, the situation hadn't much improved. Stuck as she was in the pleasant haze of a waking dream of sorts, Kathel barely even registered her aide's manoeuvring the Scout Salamander into a gap between two of the Second Platoon's four remaining Chimeras. Slumped over the pintle-mounted heavy bolter, she looked (and felt) entirely capable of sleeping even through hurricane bombardment – nevermind some small scrap with the scattered remnants of the Tyranid swarms.

At least, her sluggish mind noted happily, she didn't need to worry about keeping her Commissarial cap from flying off with the wind this time. After the racket she'd endured during their departure from the shuttle landing pad the previous day, the Commissar had wasted no time in instructing Derichs to scrounge up a headset of some sort for her; and while the bulky, old-fashioned piece of kit – similar to the sort favoured by tank commanders and those of her colleagues hapless enough to find themselves attached to the former - he came back with may not have looked particularly inspiring, it had its advantages. Much like she'd expected, it did muffle some of the noise – and, in doing so by clamping tightly down on her ears, also kept her hat pressed to her head.

Its uses didn't end there, too. Though the former qualities were where the Valhallan's interest lay, it also served as a commbead, and a good one, at that - the voice that pulled her abruptly back into the real world from her dreams of soft beds and warm covers was almost free of the depersonalizing crackle characteristic of most vox communication.

"Glad to see you join us, Commissar." You could tell from the hint of trepidation audible in the clearly male baritone that this wasn't a genuinely happy welcome; not that Kathel could really have expected one, given her role in the regiment. This could be none other than Lieutenant Klozen – the ex-sergeant who had found himself placed in charge of Fourth Company's Second Platoon following his predecessor's regrettable misfortune in running afoul of a rampaging Carnifex.

She hadn't paid the impromptu nature of his promotion much heed when it had been briefly mentioned for her benefit during the staff meeting. Brevetting officers up like that was supposed to be nothing out of the ordinary in a campaign as lengthy and brutal as the one that the 507th presently found itself embroiled in, after all, so the Commissar figured she might as well trust Colonel Hofler and Major Mewsen's competence in the matter.

Hardly feeling like interacting with anyone, much less putting on a courageous facade for the benefit of the troopers, she nevertheless forced herself too look up from the heavy bolter – just in time to see the Lieutenant wave at her from the hatch of his Chimera. Covered as half of his face was by bulky goggles, she doubted she could've made that much out in the way of the man's facial features even if it hadn't been for the distance between them.

After a moment's hesitation, Kathel waved back, the sluggishness of the movements uncomfortably obvious compared to the Guard officer's apparent sprightliness.

Despite the fact her tongue seemed barely willing to move, she figured she might as well ease whatever tension as may have hung in the air with a bit of small talk. "What happened to your Salamander, Lieutenant?" If the Munitorum dataslate she'd been provided with was to be believed, the Vanquese preferred the Command pattern of that same vehicle she'd been allotted herself for their command squads – which made the obvious lack of one in their little convoy rather glaring.

"Carnifex," He responded dryly.

Now that he'd said it, she was forced to concede that she should have figured that one out by herself. "I see." Uncertain if she should sound sorry or indifferent, the Valhallan decided in the end to go with the latter. "Well, Throne willing, we won't run into any this morning."

"We've already prayed for that, ma'am," She didn't even need to see him grin – so obvious was the expression that you could practically hear it over the vox. "Shouldn't find any until we hit the city, though. Ma'am may've heard the Earthshakers at work last night; that'll have gotten them. You could say they, uh, have trouble finding cover."

"I must've slept through that." Deciding no harm could come from pretending to be a bit more accustomed to the rigours of frontline life than she actually was, Kathel fixed her most offhand tone. Determined to undermine the credibility of her words, though, a yawn of jaw-dislocating proportions interrupted her. "One of the drawbacks of having to adjust to the planet's day cycle after all the time spent in the Warp, I suppose..."

Lieutenant Klozen chuckled nervously. Obviously, her act hadn't tricked him for a moment, but at least he was too frightened of her uniform to call the Commissar out over it. "Nothing like a good morning's march to shake the sleepiness off, then."

"Quite." Now it was her turn to see right through his feigned enthusiasm; however, the last thing the Valhallan felt like doing at such an early hour was playing the hypocrite, so she pretended to have been fooled. If he felt better about himself thanks to it, she could even pass it off as boosting the troops' morale – which was her job, after all. "What was it, twenty three kloms to the suburbs?"

"...Kloms?" If the bemused tone of his voice was any indication, her use of Valhallan shorthand had left the Lieutenant rather lost.

"Kilometres, I mean." She hurried to explain, cursing the hivers' inability to speak proper Gothic under her breath.

"Err, right." It couldn't be more obvious that Klozen's promotion to Lieutenant had been a recent one. Whether or not he was of any use when it came to commanding troops in a battle, he obviously suffered from a sore lack of experience when it came to dealing with members of the Commissariat. Where an officer more used to dealing with her ilk would have had no trouble hiding their real emotions beneath a passable facade of patriotic enthusiasm, his every attempt to do the same was foiled by a very different kind of fear than he was used to dealing with. What that translated to on this occasion was that Kathel found his reservations about her mental well-being after her use of unfamiliar slang disconcertingly easy to pick up on. "I think it was twenty one, ma'am."

The young morale officer didn't really hold it against him, though. It was a welcome change of pace, if nothing else – being the least uncomfortable party in a conversation. She fixed the most dignified and Commissarial tone she could muster (which wasn't much, honestly speaking, but that did nothing to stop her from feeling mighty pleased with herself).

"Well then; let's get to work covering them."

From the way Derichs revved the Salamander's engine right after those very words, you could have thought he'd been listening in. The Commissar didn't really have much time to consider the possibility, though, preoccupied as she was with clinging to the handles of the pintle-mounted heavy bolter as if her life depended on it.

The APCs rushed forward with a lurch, the machine spirits within apparently having been just waiting to be set loose. Without so much as a warning, the ruined buildings flanking them on either side of the street disappeared abruptly, taking with them the unpleasant stench of promethium exhaust with just a hint of charred flesh. It was replaced instead by the much more welcome sensation of an oncoming stream of crisp morning air; without much difficulty, it founds its way between the folds of Kathel's ominously black greatcoat, making it flap behind her like the wings of an oversized bat.

With the sharp daggers of cold wind biting into her face, the Valhallan's sleepiness was a thing of the past within moments of them picking up speed. Deciding it couldn't hurt to work on the inspirational value of her bearing a bit, she straightened her back and glanced over her shoulder – and was immediately unnerved by the discovery that her Scout Salamander was just one Chimera from the end of their little column. The rest of the Vanquese forces were nowhere to be seen.

"Wasn't the remainder of the column supposed to be right behind us?" Though she did her best to sound like she didn't really care either way, Kathel couldn't shake off the feeling she hadn't been entirely successful.

Klozen's head had already disappeared back into the safety of his Chimera's interior; that didn't impact the clarity of his voice over the vox one bit, though. "No ma'am; they're only catching up with us at the suburbs. We're just making sure the bulk of our boys'n'girls have a clear run to the capital without having to deal with the stray bug or two. If we run into something big out here, orders are to hold the line and wait; doubt that's gonna happen, though."

There was little else she could do besides cursing her own inattentiveness during the staff meeting as she turned ahead again. If she had hoped to find solace in the view stretching before them, though, then the young Commissar would be dismayed to discover that it offered none.

The devastation she had witnessed on her way to Nordskawenplatz was almost negligible, compared to the ravaged landscape laid out before them. The fields, already ravaged by Imperial ordnance, were crisscrossed by trenches; witnesses of the very earliest stages of the war no doubt, dug by the Uskarian PDF in a desperate attempt to hold onto their capital in the face of the swarms of ravenous xenos. Evidently, the narrow, half-collapsed earthworks had not been enough; the Tyranid swarms had rolled over the poorly trained and equipped local forces without so much as a pause, leaving in their wake only chest-high fosses and hastily constructed (and just as hastily abandoned) rockcrete bunkers - all eerily void of life.

Pitiable though the PDFers' last ditch efforts to defend their homes and families may have been, the Commissar had a hard time feeling sorry for them. It wasn't, however, out of some misguided disdain for any sort of weakness, as might have been the case if some of her colleagues had found themselves in her shoes – her concerns lay more with keeping her own hide safe, which the network of trenches and bunkers stretched out between them and the capital made remarkably more difficult than it might have otherwise been. Though most of the remaining fortifications had been cracked open by the Earthshakers the night before, the Hive Mind of the Tyranids doubtlessly knew as well as she did that they could still serve as cover for its chitin-clad servants. Concealed from both Imperial guns and eyes, they could ambush the advancing platoon only too easily.

Particularly so since, roughly halfway through the winding road to Skawenplatz, an especially large and nasty-looking network of bunkers awaited them, looming in the distance like a grim storm-cloud. Once, it had probably served as the command centre for the PDF regiments entrenched nearby; now, though, Kathel had no doubt it was crammed chock-full of pairs of razor-sharp talons just waiting to sink into her woefully under-protected flesh.

"There seems to be a bit of an obstacle in our way," She noted offhandedly, praying to the Throne and all the Saints that cared to listen for Klozen to somehow put her worries to rest. "About half of the way to the city, straight on the road. What does the Navy's intel say about that?"

There was a moment's silence, likely as the Lieutenant checked to see which 'obstacle' she had meant, precisely. "Nothing much, ma'am," He finally replied. Kathel's heart seemed to drop an inch – he sounded no happier about the matter than she felt herself. "_'Can't really see through walls and ceilings'_, to hear them tell it. Not supposed for there to be any 'nids in there, but I wouldn't put my Throne gelts on that just yet."

The Commissar struggled to maintain her traditional facade of indifference in spite of the numbing sensation starting to creep into the tips of her fingers, as usually happened whenever she felt extremely nervous. "I see." She was going to say something else, but decided against it after the horrified discovery that her voice was trembling ever so slightly. The troopers didn't need her help getting wound up, after all.

Perhaps because of the anxiety clearly audible behind her words, a sullen silence fell over their little column after that exchange, leaving the Valhallan to stew in her fears and concerns.

Entirely indifferent to the worries of their fleshy residents, the machine spirits within their vehicles continued to carry them ever closer to the deceptively lifeless-looking network of trenches ahead with almost inappropriate glee. If she could have, Kathel would have done something to stop the monotonous rumble of the Chimeras' engines – interrupted only by the occasional loud 'clang' as they drove over one of the craters scarring the road – from sounding so enthusiastic; alas, she was a Commissar, not a techpriest, and thus entirely incapable of influencing machines in any way beyond giving them a good bang with her fist. Seeing as doing that to the thick armour plating of her Salamander was more likely to result in bruising her hand than anything, she resigned herself to clinging to the pintle-mounted heavy bolter and wondering if her aide shared at least a fraction of her unease.

After a moment's trying to imagine a worried Derichs, she was forced to concede that he probably didn't. Likely, he was still as infuriatingly imperturbable as ever, chewing on his toothpick just as he'd been doing moments before their departure from Nordskawenplatz and troubled only by his attempts to squeeze as much speed out of their transport as possible before the next bump forced him to slow down again.

It made the Commissar slightly calmer for some reason – imagining his usual emotionless visage behind the wheel of the Salamander, a thin bit of wood between his lips. For a moment, she felt the strongest of urges to bring him up on the vox, even if she had no idea what it was that they would have talked about.

Before she could indulge her fleeting fancies, however, Lieutenant Klozen's voice spoke up on the platoon comm-net, sweeping any last holdouts of calmness from Kathel's mind. "Almost a third of the way through, boys'n'girls; we're hitting the first trenches, so keep a sharp eye." He sounded tense; if nothing else, though, at least he was more successful in keeping his personal fears hidden than before now that his troops could hear him. "Front vehicle, keep an eye out for any wider ditches in our way. I don't want any unnecessary stops, but I'd rather play it safe than have to pull one of you out by the tail."

This was enough to send the Commissar wiring into Derichs' commbead frequency in slightly frantic a fashion. "Could any of our vehicles actually get stuck out here?" The shaking of her voice be damned – she just needed to hear someone say they weren't going to get stuck in the middle of a ravaged wasteland, to be served as canned snacks for the Tyranids.

"No ma'am," As usual, her aide sounded completely indifferent (if not oblivious) to her plight. "Maybe if it were proper trenches we were talking about; wouldn't expect those from the local boys, though. Never a quality job if it was done by the PDF. Not with the time they had before the 'nids swung by and munched through the lot of 'em, at least."

Despite his reassurances, the sinking feeling in her stomach, far from abating, only seemed to grow worse. Thank the Throne for having a personal transport, since the Valhallan was sure – by now, she was probably already green in the face, which wasn't exactly the most Commissarial of reactions as far as their current situation went.

Pressing the matter would only serve to make her anxiety even more obvious, however, so she pretended to be satisfied with the answer she'd received. Desperate for something to do to take her mind off the ever-mounting number of threats lurking ahead, she pulled her bulky headset off and then put it back on again for no particular reason. Her right hand, however, remained firmly on the heavy bolter all the while. Shrouded in deathly silence though the fields around them may have been for the moment, there wasn't a shadow of a doubt in her mind that roks would hit the hab (as the Valhallan version of the popular idiom about fans and excrement went) only too soon.

It seemed Kathel wasn't the only one to be worried, too. Even the machine spirits of their transports – normally possessed of such a complete lack of interest in the world around them that it made Derichs seem warm and caring – took note of the dangers that lurked behind every rock, in every nook and cranny of every trench and bunker; the enthusiastic notes of their engines dampened, they crawled over the first of the fosses crossing the road at a fraction of their former speed. She would have even gone as far as saying she could actually feel the Salamander tense up beneath the thick soles of her boots.

Maybe she really _should _have become an enginseer, the Commissar reflected ruefully. At least the cogboys didn't have to stand about in an open-air passenger compartment of a vehicle while it crawled through no-man's-land. With her uniform, she stood out in the lifeless landscape like a sore thumb – or an appealing snack, if you were a Tyranid.

Yet, despite her worries, minutes ticked past and still the weighed silence wasn't interrupted by the horrendous screeches of xeno monstrosities leaping in for the kill. Elsewhere, things weren't nearly as quiet, as a quick check of the chatter filling the tactical net with the help of her Commissarial override proved conclusively. First contact reports were streaming in from every which route of advance – except theirs.

This did nothing to appease her, though. As far as she was concerned, the longer they ran into nothing whatsoever, the more likely it was that it would be something straight out of a nightmare when it finally emerged.

It was Lieutenant Klozen's voice that finally snapped her out of her terrified stupor, nearly costing the Valhallan her footing as she flinched in surprise. "Neumann, bring your Chimera to a halt. Everyone stop."

Taking a deep breath in a vain attempt to steady herself, Kathel forced herself to forget enemies real and imagined for at least a moment and focus instead on the APC straight ahead. Klozen's upper body was sticking out of the turret hatch again, his back turned to her as he looked over the bare and utilitarian outline of the bunker sprawling menacingly over the road a good fifty meters from the nose of their little column's foremost vehicle.

Her heart was beating so fast, she wasn't certain it wouldn't pop straight out of her chest. You didn't need to be a veteran soldier to know – if anything was going to happen, it would happen here; the air was so thick with tension, it was almost palpable. She could feel it cling to her, its constricting around her chest a sensation that was only too physical, turning her breath ragged and shallow. Compared to this nerve-wracking wait, even the assault that was doubtlessly soon to descend upon them was starting to sound like a welcome relief.

"We'll..." Under the circumstances, even the Lieutenant's voice sounded slightly hollow. He cleared his throat and tried again. "We'll go 'round it." Having apparently had enough of staring at the shadows grinning at them from the holes gaping in the rockcrete walls, his figure disappeared back into the relative safety of his Chimera's interior. "Off to the left, two at a time. Look out for rubble and 'nids. No one shreds their tracks and no one gets caught off guard, am I clear?"

"Crystal, Lieutenant." Sergeant Neumann responded. From the sound of his deep burr, he was no happier about the situation than his commanding officer. A soldier's job wasn't to complain, though – it was to carry out orders without question, and he knew as much. "Moving out; try to keep up, Hayel?"

"You're one, I'm two." A coarse female voice called back dryly.

There was something uncertain about the dull squelching of the vehicles' tracks as they veered off the road and into the muddy fields stretching to their left. Even as their hulls turned, though, the guns mounted on the APCs' turrets didn't flinch, remaining fixed on the dark and uninviting cracks in the bunker's shell – just like every other gun in the platoon.

You could miss it if you blinked, a momentary shift in the darkness within the bombed out remains of the command centre before them. Kathel barely had time to register what it was that she was seeing and decide that it hadn't been only a trick of the light before the Warp itself seemed to open up before them.

"'NIDS!"

By the time Neumann hollered the dreaded word, the bunker had already come alive, a shapeless mass of chitin and talons spilling out into the reddish light of the dawn for all to see. It was all but impossible to make out individual creatures in the churning tide – so tightly were they packed together, leaping and bounding forward to consume their enemy at the Hive Mind's behest.

The Vanquese troopers didn't wait for the order to open fire, the barks of two pairs of twin-linked bolters rising above the hellish screeches of the oncoming horde briefly, joined after a mere moment's delay by the turret of Klozen's Chimera. Fist-sized rounds cut into the foremost rank of the Hormagaunt swarm, detonating after a barely perceptible delay and tearing their targets into shreds.

This did little to stem the enemy's advance, however. With the utter and callous disregard for any casualties they may have sustained that was characteristic of Tyranid forces, still the xenos charged towards them, trampling over their dead and wounded in their single-minded determination to eliminate the threat they posed to the Hive Mind.

Every fibre of Kathel's being yelled at her to fire as she watched Hayel's Chimera turn hastily to bring its hull-mounted heavy flamer to bear. She couldn't help it, though; thrash and scream as the Commissar in her might have, trying to get her to do something, _anything_, the little girl she could still so vividly remember idling her summers away on Valhalla simply curled up into a ball and refused to move, quivering in fear.

She didn't want it; it wasn't for her and she didn't want it, any of it. Not the heavy bolter at her fingertips, not the bark of the firing guns... Certainly not the tide of murderous xenos, too...

Without warning, the entirety of her Salamander rumbled and shook. Instinct took hold, the Valhallan ducking behind the protective plating of her pintle-mounted gun as wild fantasies of impacting krak missiles ran through her head. It took her a moment to figure out it had, of course, been nothing of the sort – instead, Derichs had apparently mistaken her hesitation to fire for a lack of a clear line of sight and rushed to rectify that by driving off the road and around Klozen's Chimera.

As her aide unleashed the Salamander's hull-mounted heavy bolter on the enemy, the ornery old bastard that had been her Schola tutor came to her inner Commissar's aid, giving the starry-eyed little Valhallan girl a much-needed kick in the rear. Something seemed to snap into place at last; her finger slipped onto the trigger and squeezed.

The first burst flew far over the xenos' heads and Kathel felt a pang of dismay shoot through her chest. She wasn't about to give up again, though. Lowering the barrel, she tried one more time, muttering disjointed fragments of every prayer that came to mind as she did.

Despite the volume of fire levelled against them, it looked like the Hormagaunt tide would make it to the Chimeras nearest to them for a moment, their talons seemingly inches from the armour plating; then, the unmistakeable roar of a heavy flamer rose over the clatter of the battle and fiercely burning promethium rolled over the enemy, consuming the foremost ranks in a matter of moments. Hayel's driver had finished his sharp reverse turn just in time.

Whatever relief the Guardsmen may have derived from this shift in fortunes was not to last, however.

"Gladius!" Someone hollered over the platoon comm-net.

Almost without delay, their voice was echoed by the Lieutenant's. "Warrior, twelve o'clock!"

Proper vox protocol lay trampled into the dirt as thoroughly as the fallen Hormagaunts in all the excitement, sergeants too caught up in yelling at their gunners to care whether or not their commbeads were transmitting.

"Kill the bastard!"

"Shoot it! Scatter the runts!"

"Gun the frakker down!"

Klozen's patience was at an end. "CAN IT! You're not juvies in a sandbox!" His yell rose above the chatter.

Freed from the necessity of having to make sense of the commotion, Kathel's head stopped spinning briefly. The world, sluggish and surreal just moments ago, seemed awfully sharp all of a sudden as her eyes rose from the churning mass of the horde towards the gaping crack in the wall of the bunker from which their enemies were spilling out.

Sure enough, basking in the reddish hues of the dawning sun's light, the terrifying shape of a _Tyranicus gladius_ towered over its lesser kin. Unwittingly, the Commissar's knees bent as the creature raised its monstrous claws overhead; again she found herself hiding behind her heavy bolter, praying fervently for it not to see her – for it to go after someone else instead. Pleading and cursing her own weakness with the same breath.

Overdeveloped muscles tensed and the Warrior leaped forward with speed unexpected of a creature of its size - just in time to avoid a burst of bolter fire from the Salamander's hull-mounted bolter.

The Chimera's machine spirit straining to keep pace as the turret whirred around trailing the Tyranid's fearsome form, Klozen's gunner tried to succeed where Derichs had failed. To no avail; with no regard for the instinct of self-preservation that was supposed to unite all living things, the Hormagaunts threw themselves at the oncoming bolter fire, torn to shreds but successful in shielding their leader.

It was obvious by now that the Hive Mind was steering its terrible agent towards the most obvious threat on the battlefield – the heavy flamer mounted on the hull of Sergeant Hayel's Chimera. The driver tried to turn the vehicle again, hoping to bring the fearsome weapon to bear in time to neutralize the Warrior, but it was too late.

Four frightfully powerful arms tipped with razor-sharp talons and claws ripped into the APC's armour plating. Though the machine spirit met the onslaught with stoic silence, the curses and yells of those within filled the comm-net; then, the roar of the vehicle's engine rose above all else as the driver revved the engine in a last-ditch attempt to stop the Tyranid horror trying to tear its way inside by driving over it.

With a deafening roar, the synapse creature sunk one of its talons into the metal again. There was a flash of crimson as it withdrew. Whether by the brutal power of its limbs or the sheer luck of a well-placed strike, the Warrior had drawn blood.

Kathel's inner Commissar had had it. Tired of trying to coerce the little Valhallan girl into action by yells and threats alone, she paused for a moment before giving her a well-aimed punch in the kidneys.

Wincing, the Valhallan didn't even think as she swung the barrel of her heavy bolter at the towering shape still tearing at the wounded Chimera. Everything seemed hazy, as though it was nothing more than an incredibly lucid dream; for fear of being hit again, though, she didn't stop to think about it and simply pressed down on the trigger as hard as she could, watching as the burst of bolter fire found purchase in the Tyranid Warrior's chitinous armour.

The creature roared and staggered as a sizeable chunk was torn out of its shoulder. Its terrible, alien eyes filled with unbridled rage, it turned to the Salamander, bent on vengeance. The Commissar's heart seemed to be climbing out her throat at the sight - but still she forced herself to delay before opening fire again, slightly lowering the barrel of her bolter.

Slowly, painfully slowly, the massive body swayed to the left as detonating bolts tore a hole in its chest. Then, as if still making up its mind over where to collapse, it staggered to the right. Still driven onwards by the fading voice of the Hive Mind, with its last remaining shreds of strength the Warrior tried to keep itself upright with one of its talons and took a single step forward - before its head was torn apart by the twin-linked heavy bolter mounted on Klozen's turret.

At last robbed of life, the mass of flesh and chitin crumbled to the ground with a resounding 'thud'.

Her muscles giving way, Kathel slumped over her heavy bolter like a puppet whose strings had been abruptly cut. She didn't much care for the remainder of the mass of Hormagaunts, now trampling over one another in utter confusion without the guiding voice of the Hive Mind to direct them as their ranks were being culled mercilessly by the Chimeras' guns; now that the Commissar within her wasn't holding her up by the collar any longer, supporting her own weight or pressing the trigger suddenly seemed like insurmountable challenges.

It was over – that was the only thing she could think of, the knowledge filling her being from head to toe. Pleasant warmth flooded the Valhallan to the very tips of her fingers, replacing the cold numbness that had seized hold of her during the battle. It was over, and she was still alive to think about it.

With a soft sigh, she smiled weakly in spite of the metal bolter part pressed painfully into her cheek.


	5. Forward, March!

**Author's Note: Once again it is brought home to me how much I suck at planning out chapters. If the following chapter seems a bit uneventful (or, to be less charitable, a pointless waste of e-paper), that's because it was originally supposed to be the middle of one single chapter consisting of the previous one and the one after this. However, since personally I'm not a big fan of Big Goddamn Updates upwards of 10000 words, this is what you get since, as of The Threat Within, I'm paranoid about skipping over too many things.  
**

**So have a Merry Christmas and a bit of a bridging chapter! **

**(I promise there'll be actual Tyranids in the next one)  
**

* * *

** CHAPTER FIVE**

**Forward, March!**

* * *

"_Hurry up and wait._

_Then realize you're frak outta fuel anyway and just screw it all."_

-Captain Dubois, 48th Dakian Armoured

* * *

Kathel couldn't say how long she stood there like that, slumped over the heavy bolter; waves of relief and euphoria washed over her, carrying away all sense of the passage of time and lulling the Commissar into a pleasant stupor that made the world around her look both unbelievably sharp and incredibly surreal at the same time.

Everything – from the gentle wind caressing her face, to the coarse fabric of her greatcoat's collar, brushing against her neck – felt fresh, new. Even with the metal bolter part pressing painfully into her cheek and the stench of charred flesh and burning promethium wafting off the burnt Hormagaunt carcasses, Uskarus II somehow seemed warm and welcoming all of a sudden. Painted in the light of surviving her first real brush with the enemy, those same fields that had terrified her so not more than a dozen minutes ago were now nearly as pleasant to the eye as the icy fields of Valhalla.

It has to be pointed out that, in the Commissar's mind, the entire affair with the Tyranids had appeared rather more dramatic and life-threatening than it had actually been. A common – and understandable – mistake often made after one's first encounter with this particular strain of xeno.

Lost in this ecstatic haze, the young Valhallan could be forgiven for letting her guard down and forgetting everything she'd learned about that main law of life that she had been so recently taught:

The universe loves nothing more than to screw with a perfect moment.

"Hayel, talk to me. Casualties?"

Lieutenant Klozen's voice sounded distinctly unpleasant to the Commissar's ears, almost like fingernails on a chalkboard; fortunately, it was also strangely distant, hovering on the very edge of hearing for whatever reason. While not entirely sure what that reason might be, she felt entirely satisfied with this state of affairs - for the slight moment before what discipline her tutor had managed to beat into her in the Schola reasserted itself, that is.

Forcing herself to look for an explanation, her eyes swerved downwards – and, sure enough, there it was. The bulky earphones that Derichs had recently acquired for her were hanging uselessly from Kathel's neck, having slipped off her ears at some point.

Reluctantly, she pulled them back into place. Just in time to hear Sergeant Hayel's response.

"We're still alive… ish." Though obviously none too happy, at least the sergeant seemed alright, judging from the sound of her voice. "Leo's gone, though." She carried on after a sigh, trying to sound like it was all one to her - and she would have succeeded, too, were it not for the barely audible edge lurking behind her words that betrayed her. "Seems he went down with his ride, too. Hard to be sure from in here, but pretty sure the Chimera's more or less frakked."

Clearly disappointed, Klozen echoed her sigh. "Right." Evidently, he had been hoping that his platoon – already quite a ways below nominal strength – wouldn't have to put up with further vehicle losses; to no avail. Once again, fate was only too happy to prove its penchant for vomiting in everyone's collective kettle.

"Get your people out, then. No point in serving yourself as canned food for the 'nids."

"Roger." The sergeant responded with the Guard's trademark professional terseness, the earlier irresolute edge already pushed from her voice. Kathel couldn't help but feel impressed. Had it been her in Hayel's boots, the Commissar had no doubt - she would have been struggling to put together a coherent sentence.

The hatch on the wrecked Chimera's turret popped open with the dull thud of metal hitting against metal, giving way to a gaunt female face.

Watching as the woman's mane of dirty blonde hair swayed slightly in the faint morning wind, it took Kathel a moment to realize something odd – the presumed Sergeant Hayel wasn't wearing a helmet. Having seen nothing but faces staring out at her from beneath the Guard's standard-issue bucket (as the troopers themselves affectionately referred to that particular piece of equipment) or some sort of hat for quite a while, that probably accounted for the Valhallan's finding her head to be strangely small.

"Keep us covered," The sergeant voxed after a moment's taking in their surroundings, clambering out of her disabled transport. The way she slipped down its hull seemed almost graceful; long years of practice were probably to blame.

Any further observations as the Commissar may have hoped to make were thoroughly ruined by Derichs' enthusiastic reception of Hayel's order. Without so much as a warning, he revved their Salamander's engine in a show of blatant disregard for his superior's safety.

Sure enough, taken completely by surprise by the mighty lurch with which the vehicle climbed back on the road, Kathel could do little but helplessly feel the heavy bolter's handles slip from her loosened grasp – and brace for impact as she was forcibly (and painfully) sat down.

All things considered, she was quite lucky not to have cracked her head open on one of the innumerable sharp angles treacherously scattered throughout the scout transport's passenger compartment. However, preoccupied as she was with rubbing her rear and wondering if her spine hadn't shattered, the Valhallan wasn't really in the best of positions to appreciate such small victories.

"Sorry, ma'am. Shoulda warned you." Her aide apparently decided a late apology was better than none; delivered with his usual note of utter indifference, though, it sounded rather less than sincere. At least she could take solace in the fact that he hadn't seen her newest foray into the already all too familiar lands of undignified flailing. "Hope it didn't catch you off guard?"

Deciding to try and avoid adding insult to her own injury, Kathel pushed her Commissarial cap off her eyes and fixed what she dearly hoped might pass for an unfazed tone. "Not quite," Rubbing her rear, she couldn't help feeling he could hear her attempts to disentangle herself from her greatcoat, and so desisted for a moment. "But I would prefer some advance warning next time."

"Noted, ma'am. Again, apologies."

Trying not to consider the possibility of Derichs intentionally trying to make her look like a fool too seriously, Kathel dusted herself off and wrapped her fingers around the pintle-mounted heavy bolter again. Doing her best to ignore the throbbing pain in her hind quarters, she swung its barrel towards the gaping hole in the bunker's wall.

Even now, after having vomited forth the xenos that had been lurking within, the crack in the rockcrete shell still grinned menacingly at the platoon of Guardsmen scrambling to get back on the road. The Commissar didn't trust its malicious darkness one bit and after the hell it had just put all of them (and, rather more importantly, her individually) through, she was damned if she would turn her back on it for even a second.

After what must have been at least a few minutes of staring at the gap, however, curiosity over what was going on behind her back was starting to take its toll.

Finally, she decided to screw it. After all, as the Valhallan justified it to herself, it wasn't as though their security hinged on the watchful eyes of her alone; a brief glance over the shoulder could hardly do that much harm.

Thus, blissfully ignorant of just how wrong she was – and just how badly this mistake might have come back to bite her in her already sore behind under different circumstances, - she looked back.

Hayel was standing next to the Lieutenant's Chimera, her squad huddled behind her back like juvies around a Schola tutor. A rather apt comparison; among the armour-plated beasts totting heavy bolters and the like, the six soldiers – all that was left of the original nine after the brutal campaign against the xeno foe had taken its toll – seemed awfully small and… squishy, for lack of a better word.

Just the sort of thing a Tyranid on the lookout for a nice meal would go for, in other words - which probably accounted for the jittery way they swung their lasguns about in their search for any signs of threat in the surrounding fields.

The sergeant herself, on the other hand, looked entirely at ease, her own gun hanging idly from her shoulder. She seemed far more interested in Klozen than in either the 'nid carcasses or the fields around her, looking up at him sticking halfway out of the hatch of his transport's turret.

If the amount of gesticulating was any indication, the two were involved in quite the heated talk. One that they had chosen to keep off the comm-net, as Kathel was disappointed to discover after quickly flicking through their squads' frequencies.

Lieutenant Klozen soon brightened her mood somewhat, though, bringing the conversation back onto the vox.

"One Chimera more or less, we can't stop here." He grumbled over the platoon net. "The Colonel wants us holding down the suburbs for the rest of our boys'n'girls, and a safe launchpad's exactly what I intend to give him."

Hayel did not seem amused, even if the chain of command – and the uncomfortably close proximity of an acting member of the Commissariat – prevented her from giving voice to whatever reservations she may have harboured. "Well unless someone can give us a ride, we're stuck here until the cogboys get our tin can running again... Sir."

"Don't look here," Sergeant Neumann's distinctive rumbling burr called back from the lead Chimera. "We're crammed."

"Same with us." Another, unfamiliar, male voice echoed him. Likely it belonged to the sergeant of the rearmost of their vehicles, since Kathel couldn't remember hearing a word from it so far. "We're already bursting at the seams trying to keep two squads in. Don't even wanna imagine what it'd look like if we tried to squeeze another in."

"Guess there's no point in asking you, sir?" Hayel sighed, sounding on the verge of giving up.

Even from where she was standing, the Valhallan could see Klozen's shoulders slump in defeat. "'fraid not. I guess you'll-"

"We've got a bit of space."

An uncomfortable silence descended over the platoon comm-net briefly.

If they were surprised to discover they still had a Commissar in their midst, the Guardsmen could be forgiven; after all, she hadn't let out so much as a squeak ever since the Tyranid assault. For her part, Kathel was simply left somewhat speechless by her own boldness, hardly having expected herself to pitch in to help like that.

"…That's an idea, ma'am." Sergeant Hayel croaked, being the first to recover. She cleared her throat.

"It's not a lot, though; there certainly won't be much in the way of elbow room." The Commissar hastened to elaborate, suddenly feeling a rush of eagerness to prove she wasn't completely useless. "Plus it's open-topped, so if we run into any fleshborers… Well, quite."

The words lingered uncomfortably in the air for a moment. Much like the rest of the platoon, Kathel wrestled with her own imagination briefly as she tried not to visualize the results of the unfortunate combination of ranged bioweapons and crowded, roofless transportation too vividly.

"But I should think it's better than staying behind." She finally pushed the image to the most distant corner of her mind and concluded with a tentative cough. "With a bit of creativity…"

"You're right, ma'am." Klozen was obviously trying not to sound too surprised at her turning out to have her uses but, just as before, a Commissarial uniform – even one that he couldn't actually see – was enough to put a significant chink in his mask. He realized that just as well as she did, at least if the way he rushed to move on was any indication. "Hayel, think you can fit all your people in a Salamander?"

The sergeant nodded confidently. "Sure as the Throne is golden, sir."

"Do it, then." Her superior let out a relieved wheeze, apparently happy for at least something to have turned out relatively well. A sentiment Kathel considered herself able to sympathise with entirely by that point. "I'll vox back home and let them know we've left a little something on the road for them to pick up."

With a salute towards their commanding officer, the small knot of Guardsmen set off towards her vehicle. Though wading through the mud and debris was no walk along a paradise world's beach, the sudden hope that they wouldn't be left to stand knee-deep in that mess all by themselves seemed enough to spur them onwards with a fair bit of enthusiasm.

Watching them, the Commissar entertained for a moment the idea of asking whether it wasn't slightly careless to leave an armed – if incapacitated – Chimera all by itself in the middle of no-man's-land. Such thoughts, however, did not last altogether long. Her courage had already been spent offering her Salamander up as transportation for a squad of troopers, after all – and even if she had felt like risking publicly humiliating herself in some fun new manner, the young Valhallan soon found herself forced to concede that, of all the many (many, _many_) enemies of the Imperium, the Tyranids must have been the ones least likely to salvage or jury-rig Imperial tech.

"Ma'am." A voice from below snapped her out of her thoughts. Looking down, she saw Hayel, the sergeant saluting as she reluctantly performed the dangerous manoeuvre of drawing a political officer's attention to herself. "Suppose we'll be joining you, then."

Kathel nodded. "Yes, I suppose so, sergeant." Her eyes wandered across the band of soldiers – most of them looking down or to the side rather than meet a Commissar's stare (for which she felt grateful, since hers was not a stare anywhere near as imposing as those of some of her colleagues) – then back to the passenger compartment. She'd never thought of it that way but, now that they'd have to find room for seven more people, it was starting to look awfully cramped.

"Are you going to be alright in here?"

The non-com looked up, caught by the query in the middle of climbing aboard the Salamander. "Yes ma'am." She pulled herself up with apparently no effort at all, flashing the Valhallan a smile that looked a bit rigid and insincere - the only kind of smile, in other words, that any member of the Commissariat could expect from a Guardsman. "We've had worse."

If nothing else, Hayel at least _sounded _like she knew what she was doing. This was far more than the Commissar could say about herself, so she resolved to trust her professional expertise and leave the troopers to the business of cramming themselves aboard the scouting vehicle.

As she watched a stocky Guardsman with what seemed like traces of a poorly removed gang tattoo etched onto his left cheek make himself comfortable on the Salamander's hull just right of her heavy bolter's barrel, however, one of his knees hovering precariously close to the tracks, Kathel had to confess to beginning to question the validity of the sergeant's claims.

"…Are you sure you're going to be alright?"

"No worries, ma'am. They just need to hang on real tight..." The blonde-haired NCO smiled again, the air of confidence she put on for the benefit of her troops taking a slight blow after her eyes swerved involuntarily towards the Commissarial cap perched upon the Valhallan's head. "As I've said, ma'am, we've had worse rides."

"Sure true, sarge." A nervous voice grumbled somewhere around Kathel's elbow. She looked down to find a lanky trooper crouching down there, trying desperately not to poke her with the barrel of his lasgun despite the lack of space. Doubtlessly, he was scared witless of violating her personal space in any way lest he incur the wrath of the Commissariat; one of the few benefits that came with the position. "'member when we had to go at it on the hull of that Russ? Back when we were with the…"

That was when his brain seemed to catch up with his mouth. Realizing what he was saying, the Vanquese soldier trailed off into uncertain coughing, busying himself with inspecting the sleeve of his coat so that he wouldn't have to look up at the Commissar.

Kathel frowned slightly, puzzled. "I'm sorry?"

"…The Dakians. Ma'am." Hayel pitched in to save her beleaguered subordinate, looking distinctly unhappy at the need to pronounce the name of that particular regiment. If the way she was glaring daggers at him was any indication, these must have been the same Dakians whose tardiness had almost resulted in Colonel Hofler ending up on the wrong end of a field execution – or, to put it otherwise, the one subject you didn't want to bring up in front of the regimental morale officer.

Deciding it was up to her to salvage the atmosphere before the rest of the journey to Skawenplatz turned into an exercise in awkwardly breathing down one another's necks in silence, the Valhallan pretended she hadn't made the connection. Instead, she occupied herself with switching to Derichs' commbead frequency.

"I think we're as ready as we're going to be up here." Glancing over her shoulder to check if that was indeed the case, she received an affirmative thumbs-up from Sergeant Hayel. "Just don't go too fast and we should all be fine."

Common sense told Kathel this was nowhere near the truth. For once, though, she decided to do the Commissarial thing and ignore it. After all, what did she care? It wasn't her who would be getting caught in the tracks and suffering a horrible death when they hit the first larger bump in the road.

"Yes ma'am." Her aide's reassurances, spoken in his usual monotone, did nothing to convince her someone wouldn't end up with a broken bone or a dozen after he pressed down on the accelerator with all the caution of a stampeding grox. Once again, she had to put the voice of reason to rest by (correctly) pointing out it wasn't her ass on the line. "I'll be so gentle, you won't even know we're moving."

The Commissar sincerely doubted that. Deciding to keep her scepticism to herself, though, she focused instead on maintain a tight grip on her pintle-mounted bolter. Stumbling backwards into Hayel and throwing both of them overboard was an adventure she would have much preferred to do without, if at all possible.

Off to the side, Sergeant Neumann's Chimera rumbled back to life. It seemed it was well and truly 'go time', as one of Kathel's fellow Cadets had dubbed it.

"Think it's best if you went second instead of us, ma'am." Klozen voxed as he disappeared back inside his transport. "We can keep you covered better."

It only took a glance at the troopers sitting on both sides of her heavy weapon, reducing her field of vision to a fraction of what it was supposed to be, to convince her that the Lieutenant may have had a point. Knowing she'd regret it, the Commissar tapped into her aide's personal channel again.

"Derichs, you heard the Lieutenant."

That was all the encouragement he needed. All promises of gentle conduct thrown to the wind, the Vanquese trooper put the pedal to the metal and the Salamander leaped forward with a jolt, eliciting excited yelps from his fellow Guardsmen. As she watched them hang on for their lives with what looked rather more like exuberant grins than terrified grimaces, the Valhallan could only arrive at one conclusion.

Everyone around her was completely, irreversibly mad.

* * *

Despite Kathel's fears and reservations to the contrary - and against all reason, as far as she was concerned, - the rest of their journey to the Uskarian capital went by without a hitch. Not once did the bloodcurdling scream of a trooper caught in the tracks break the morning silence; nor did they ever need to stop and wait for someone who had lost their grip and fallen off the hull.

As a matter of fact, from what she'd seen, none of the Vanquese soldiers had even so much as shifted to get a better hold on whatever it was that they were clinging onto. While not entirely sure if this really was the experience of a veteran mechanized regiment showing, or simply sheer luck, in the end, the Commissar had to admit – she was impressed.

And all the more apprehensive for it. It would be so much harder to maintain a facade of competence while serving alongside veterans, after all.

If she'd been looking forward to their arrival into the suburbs of Skawenplatz to calm her down, the Valhallan would be sorely disappointed, too. The city, which looked simply unwelcoming from a distance, seemed to grow outright hostile as they drew closer; towering warehouses rose abruptly from the ground on either side of the road to greet them, casting an ominous shadow and offering no gradation in the transition from countryside to city.

Surrounded as she was by a whole squad of the very troopers she was supposed to inspire to great deeds, Kathel could do little but swallow silently. Inwardly, however, she was starting to think that the bombed out streets of Nordskawenplatz may not have been as bad as she'd originally thought.

"This is it, boys'n'girls; welcome to Skawenplatz." Lieutenant Klozen's baritone was the only noise to break the eerie silence as he bravely attempted a joke. "Population: 'nids."

Tyranids were indeed the only thing they could have expected to run into in the bleak, lifeless city stretching out before them. Where once the drab (if one were to be generous; as far as the Valhallan was concerned, nonexistent would have been a better word) decor of the hab-blocks shooting up from the ground to greet them at the three-way intersection up ahead may have been merely unpleasant, in the context of a xeno infestation it looked downright threatening.

Even though she knew from the brief that Derichs had given her yesterday that Skawenplatz had only been in enemy hands (or talons, as it were) for several months, looking at those buildings, Kathel couldn't shake the feeling that the city had been nothing but a ghost-town and xeno hidey-hole for decades on end.

"Charmed, sir." Sergeant Neumann was the first to give voice to the whole platoon's thoughts. "Where do you want us stopping?"

"Take us up to that intersection, right ahead." Klozen replied. "We'll see what we can do from there."

Clinging tighter onto her heavy bolter, the Commissar mumbled a hasty prayer to the Emperor under her breath, all the while trying to keep up the charade of nonchalant confidence for the benefit of the troopers squeezing around her. It were those same troopers that worried her so much as to turn to Him on Earth for support, really; with how crammed they all were, their Salamander's combat efficiency had been reduced to naught but a dinner invitation for the Tyranids.

Worse still, while the street ahead seemed clear as could be when it came to enemies, Kathel hadn't yet forgotten the demonstration of the blasted xenos' penchant for appearing out of nowhere. Overactive as always, her imagination was hence in no rush to stop painting images of certain doom awaiting them up ahead.

Under the circumstances, Neumann's vox message was an Emperor-sent. "Looks clear, sir."

Exhaling silently, only now did the young Valhallan realize how tight her grip on the pintle-mounted bolter had gotten. For once, she had cause to be thankful for the gloves that came with the Commissarial uniform; at least, with her hands thus covered, the Guardsmen hitching a ride with her couldn't see her doubtlessly whitened knuckles.

"'Course it does." The Lieutenant tried to sound completely assured as his APC pulled up behind the overcrowded Salamander. His relieved sigh didn't slip past Kathel's ears, though. "Neumann, Hayel, get your people out while I check our bearings. Rest of you, pray to the Emperor that the Navy's intel is good for once, 'cause I'd rather not get lost while slogging it out like the PBI that we're about to be."

The usage of one of the Guard's many infamous three letter acronyms left the Commissar slightly lost. "PBI?" She glanced over her shoulder, not really expecting anyone to take the time to explain it to a grass-green political officer.

"Poor Bloody Infantry, ma'am." Hayel obliged, smiling wryly as she took the time to gesture towards one of the streets leading deeper into the city despite being in the middle of hefting herself out of the Salamander. The vehicle still rumbled idly, Derichs apparently in no rush to cut the engine just yet.

As Kathel looked where the sergeant had pointed, her heart skipped a beat. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Klozen had it right. Though the Imperial Earthshakers hadn't been targeting the suburbs during their nightly bombardment (as far as she knew, at least), someone else had evidently done the job beforehand. Craters grinned up at them from the pavement and large chunks blasted out of the surrounding buildings littered their avenues of advance, providing ample cover for the infantryman – but also threatening to shred the tracks of any vehicle foolhardy enough to try going through. Perhaps it might be cleared away once the bulk of the regiment arrived, but for now, they'd have to make do with just their own feet in the way of transportation.

For the second time that morning, the Commissar cursed the Uskarian PDF and its desperate – and ultimately pointless - struggle to hold back the Tyranid tide. Had the lot of them not been turned into biomass long ago, she would have probably gone out of her way to shoot a commander or a dozen for complicating the Imperium's liberation efforts with their stupid attempts at survival.

"...Right!" The Lieutenant's voice brought her back to the there and then. She glanced back, only to find him once again emerging halfway from his turret's hatch, this time with what looked like a map of some sort in hand. "Seems we'll want to hold this place we're at."

Inwardly, Kathel shrugged. Standing their ground, while somewhat terrifying in its own right, was certainly preferable to advancing onwards.

Klozen wasn't done, however. The frigid cold of fear would yet have the chance to worm its way back into her stomach as he carried on, motioning down the two ways that the road they'd taken into Skawenplatz split into. "Wouldn't hurt to advance up those two streets there and take the first crossings they split into, too."

The man may as well have been spouting heresy, as far as she was concerned. What in the Warp was he going on about – _of course _it would hurt to go anywhere further!

"We going to be fanning out much more once the bulk gets here?" Hayel butted in before the Commissar could embarrass herself with a terrified squeal or something of the sort. Apparently, she wasn't so easy to perturb; as a matter of fact, she was still leaning against the Salamander, her casual manner contrasting sharply with that of her troopers - who were already huddled behind whatever cover they could find.

Apparently, the sergeant's hiver instincts were telling her that they weren't going to be ambushed anytime soon. Kathel wasn't about to follow the lead of the one person strolling into a warzone without a helmet (whether by choice or, rather more likely, necessity), though - the fact that she wasn't much better off with her blasted cap be damned.

"Not in those directions, no;" Shaking his head, Klozen looked back down at his dataslate map. "Seems those intersections're gonna be our flanks. We're gunning for the palace and that's south west of where we're at," His hand indicated somewhere ahead and to the right - which made sense, considering they were coming in from the north. "While those streets, they run a full ring 'round the city. We keep heading down them, we run into the Widrunian infantry."

"That'd be great," The unfamiliar third sergeant remarked sardonically. "I always wanted a bunch of scared kids getting in my tracks."

"Shut it." Judging from the lack of genuine sternness to the Lieutenant's growl, his subordinate's sentiment wasn't entirely lost on him. You couldn't just up and admit that in front of the regimental Commissar, though. "All you need to know is, I want heavy weapons up in those crossroads. Neumann, you've got..?"

Kathel picked out the sergeant's nodding shape among the soldiers hiding among the rubble, Neumann having already led his troops out of their transport as ordered. "Two, sir. Bolters."

"Good, and Felpp?"

"Third fireteam's got one bolter, sir. And not much more, at that." The sardonic sergeant called back, sounding a lot more professional now that regimental prejudices weren't the subject. As far as she could understand from what she'd heard so far, this Felpp had apparently been saddled with the leftovers of one of the platoon's squads – likely after it had been reduced to less than half its nominal strength, probably losing both the sergeant and the ASL for good measure.

"Could use that, sir." Hayel interjected again, stepping away from the Commissarial Salamander and looking up at Klozen. "Me and third squad could take one of the targets..."

"...Leaving Neumann the other. Do it." The Lieutenant nodded. He glanced over his shoulder at the rear Chimera. "Felpp, you're staying back here with me as reserve."

Silence descended over the platoon comm-net after that. It took Kathel a moment to realize that Klozen was looking at her from the hatch of his Chimera – and then another to piece together what it was he wanted from her.

Not for the first time since stepping foot on Uskarus II, the urge to tell the Guardsmen just where they could cram their expectations about a Commissar's conduct flared in her chest. In the end, she did nothing of the sort, of course; after all, if the Valhallan had been brave enough for something like that, she wouldn't have been so bothered by what it was that she was about to 'volunteer' for in the first place.

"If I may interject, I think I'd be of more use accompanying Sergeant Hayel rather than hanging back here."

The Lieutenant nodded after a slight delay, adjusting the bulky goggles on his face for no apparent reason other than to give his hands something to do now that he wasn't thumbing his dataslate anymore. "'Course, ma'am. We'll keep an eye on your Salamander for you."

"Much appreciated." The young Commissar mumbled, doing her best to sound at ease despite the unpleasant tingle already creeping up the tips of her fingers. As she reluctantly let go of the heavy bolter and clambered out of her trusty transport's passenger compartment, the vehicle's safety was understandably the least of her concerns. As a matter of fact, as far as she cared, the Emperor Himself could descend from the heavens and requisition it indefinitely, just so long as she herself got through this alive and in one piece.

Her boots' heavy footsteps did not sound anywhere near as assured as she would have liked but, doing her best to ignore it, Kathel strolled up to Hayel, trying to look every bit as nonchalant as the sergeant. Whether or not they were both putting on an act was uncertain, but it remained a fact that the blonde-haired NCO seemed rather closer to the real deal than the Valhallan – even if the former could at least hide behind her naturally pale complexion to conceal any outwards signs of her apprehension.

Hayel wasn't the only one, too. Derichs, for one, seemed every bit as immovable as he always did. He materialized at her side without warning, the same toothpick he'd been chewing on back in Nordskawenplatz still in his mouth, just a little bit shorter.

In actuality nowhere near as calm as either of them despite the facade she tried desperately to maintain, the Commissar bit her lip nervously. How was she – an alleged paragon of battlefield virtues – supposed to feel if even her aide was looking more Commissarial than did? 'Pretty damned miserably' seemed a good answer to that particular question. Feeling a flare of pointless anger at the world in her chest, she kicked a pebble away, watching it bounce across the pavement.

"Lhostick, ma'am?"

It took her a moment to disentangle herself from her gloomy thoughts, caught unaware as she had been by Derichs' voice. She looked up to see the trooper holding a worn and battered pack of lhosticks out at her.

Apparently, he'd mistaken her anxiety for withdrawal.

Kathel cracked a faint smile at her aide. "Thank you, I'll pass."

With a shrug, Derichs shoved the packet back into the pocket of his coat. If the thought of trying to read from his face whether or not he had actually made the mistake that she'd initially presumed him to have, one glance at his dispassionate, unshaved visage was enough to dissuade her. Her hands itching for something to do, the Commissar busied herself instead with pulling the bulky headset off her ears, letting it hang from her neck.

It was only after the three soldiers that Hayel had rather too grandly dubbed 'the third squad' joined them that Kathel finally realized what it was that they had been waiting around for. This did inspire her with a little hope; while calling three soldiers a squad seemed like a considerable overstatement, at least they brought with them the considerable firepower of a heavy bolter. Having weaponry like that along for the ride was always a good thing. So long as she managed to stay on the right end of it, that is.

Feeling a little better but still quite convinced she was about to wave her life goodbye, the Valhallan figured she might as well get it over with. She glanced at Sergeant Hayel. "Shall we, then?"

With a last salute towards Klozen, the sergeant flashed her a smile that, while just as rigid as before, at least managed to look confident. "Sure thing, ma'am." She turned to her troops, the Guardsmen having reluctantly torn themselves away from what cover they had managed to scrounge up. Instead, they were now huddled behind her back in much the same manner as they had when the platoon was still stuck by the bunker.

"Move out!"

Kathel just managed to catch a glimpse of Neumann waving at them from the opposite end of the intersection as he herded his troopers down the street Klozen had assigned them. Hayel waved back, her smile growing into a grin. How exactly she had it in her to do it, the Commissar had no idea; her own arms, hanging stiffly by her sides, seemed to have turned into wood.

It was only after trying to take that terrifying first step that she discovered the case was much the same with her legs. Apparently, even her limbs were sure that what awaited her down that damnable rubble-littered street could be nothing short of certain death.


End file.
